NRPG:  Here's Callana's time pass for the two weeks.   Time just flies!

-----Callana------

The days flew out from underneath her.  Patrol with Farr'in had given
her perfect logistics for Cleft's region.  She had also been keeping her
ear open, and decided she'd keep her midnight ramblings a little more
discreet.  And she'd take her dragon along.

After a while, the days started to just fly by, and the nights crept
along like a snail convention.  She knew exactly why, too.

*A year,* she thought, sitting on the balcony.  Her legs dangled over
the edge, and a cool wind whipped her braided hair, snatching at loose
tendrils.  She faced the wind, feeling it sting her eyes.

<Happy birthday!> Slaire said cheerfully.

<Wrong holidy, lizard breath,> Callana replied dully.  <Come on, we've
got the day off.>

Slaire appeared before her a moment later, her eyes searching her rider
quizzically.

<Where do you want to go?> Slaire asked.  Wordless in her reply, Callana
gave Slaire a picture.

<Oh.>

*****

They teleported in as close as they could without getting caught, and
flew the rest of the way.  Slaire disappeared to hunt for a few hours,
leaving Callana solitary.  She'd had a hard time convincing Slaire she
really did need to be alone.. that it wasn't one of those times when a
human said one thing and meant something else.. Slaire got the message.

Callana sat on the edge of a low bluff, staring out into the tumultuous,
shifting wastes beyond.  They had receded, she knew instantly.  She felt
the land crying out in relief, she heard the screams much more clearly,
she could feel the memories tugging at her eyes, pulling at the tears.

After a while, she got up and half-slid, half-climbed down the bluff,
knowing it as the same one she had climbed on her way out.  She noticed
that a year's worth of seasons had washed away the blood.

"Forgive me.." she breathed at the base of the bluff, and began pacing
towards the shifting, painful sight before her.  She could feel it
spread, open, engulf her, and heard Slaire's roar of anguish as her
dragon appeared beside her.

"I never got to say good bye," she began, and choked as a foul wind
stung the breath from her lungs.  "Damn you," she breathed.  "I went
through this.. I learned to survive, damn it!  I am not some weakling, I
know what this is, and I'd sooner teleport to oblivion than let this.."

Her tirade continued, gasping out curses that only her dragon could
hear.  Abruptly, the wind stopped when she did.

"I won't be here long," she muttered caustically, glaring hard into the
distance.  "Let me say my piece, and I'll leave!"

Her bargain was heard.  The ground shifted beneath her -she knew it
before she felt it- and abruptly, she stood atop a deep chasm, staring
down at her nightmare.  It seemed surreal, like she could wake up any
moment, and shake off the fear like so much dust.

The bones were piled a little higher, though she could still see which
skeletons had been on top the last time she stood there.  A piece of
tattered leather fluttered from a rib, a dragon skull gaped madly.  It
was easy to identify the bones as no one she knew, and she breathed a
sigh of relief.

"Forgive me," she started again.  "I can't cry for you any more.  I
cried myself nearly to death long ago, though after I left I decided
that I'd never drown.. not in blood, and not in tears."

Only silence answered her.  She felt her head begin to ache with the
strain of blocking memories the way she blocked Slaire's voice when she
didn't want to hear.

"When I was sixteen, I felt like no one knew me, and no one ever could. 
You were eighteen, and had the world in your hands.  Now I'm twenty-one
and you're.. you're.. I don't know what you are any more, and that's why
I'm here.  I thought maybe if I said good-bye, I really could move on."

Slaire began a low, keening wail as she felt her dragonrider's unvented
anguish battering her mind.

"If you could forget me and move on-"

"If anyone ever had to feel like this again-"

"I could move on..."

<Then why don't you?>

"Because.. because.. it feels like betrayal.  He was the only one who
had the ..guts to approach me when everyone called me 'Blade'-"

<I still do.>

"And so did he.  But in the end, he disappeared, and I can't help but
hope... Sometimes, I wish I just felt nothing."

<Then maybe you are crazy.>

"I came here to find some answers, not listen to an over-bred,
underbrained flighted pond-newt," Callana snapped.

<All right, if you prefer wraiths and rogue dragons->

"What!?"

She could have sworn Slaire smirked.  <Just testing.>

Callana looked down at the skeletons once more, searching for a shred of
familiar cloth, a piece of jewelry, anything.

"I don't know if I could really say good bye, but right now, I'd give
anything to find out."

{Even,} she heard, {yourself?  Would you consign yourself to a life of
desolation.. both of you?}  She had heard that voice long ago, and
believed herself invincible to it, believed she could find him.  Now...

"Yes," she breathed.  Moments later, she heard something resound through
her mind as crystal clear as a bell at dawn, as brightly hopeful as the
dawn of spring, and as harshly painful as the most bitter winter.

..Yes...

Just an echo, she realized.  An echo of a hope.  It was fading fast now.

"Maybe I don't need to say good bye after all."

<That's my girl!>

*But who'm I kidding?  I lost all my heart and half my soul.. the better
half.. and I don't even have the security of knowing that he's really
gone.  It could be acredited to a youthful infatuation..*

"I never got to say good-bye, T'keth, and I wish to the gods that I
never have to," she said aloud.  "I would wait for eternity for you, if
I could.  You were everything and more for me- lover, friend, family...
Who can replace a first love?  I will remember you.  Forgive me:  I
can't cry for you."

<I would cry for you,> Slaire sent quietly.  <If a dragon could.>

<You would?>

<I fly for you, I would cry for you, and I will die for you,> Slaire
replied.  <I am your friend, one you will never lose.>

<Wouldn't all dragons do that for their riders?>

<Yes.  And their riders would do the same.>

<My bond with you goes beyond anything a human could ever share, and my
only willing death would be one for and with you.>

<We are sisters, you and I.  I passed down all the others long ago for
you, and none will ever come close.. No one will ever see what a dragon
sees in their rider.>

<Aww.. I think I'll skip dessert tonight.>

<You're too skinny.  No wonder you can't find a mate.>

<Oh, shut up.  Let's get out of here.  This place is still creepy.>

<The wastes will never reveal this place.>

<And neither will we.  Let's go.>

She mounted Slaire, and together they flew back out of the wastes.  The
grey hell opened up the path out, parting like a hot knife through
butter.  Callana felt the cool, fresh air on her cheeks again, felt
Slaire shudder in ecstacy at the freedom.

She didn't look back.  She knew what was behind her.  More importantly,
she knew what was in front of her.  She didn't even consider how easy
her entry and departure had been, and would never tell anyone.

It was late when they returned to Cleft.  Slaire teleported in over the
farmlands and flown the rest of the way.  Callana found time for her
walk around the warren, but didn't hear the voices.  She recognized the
location, though.  She was directly across from Farr'in's sister Thina's
apartment, where the twins Arly and Leyean were staying after their
father's recent beating.

Callana felt the anger welling up inside of her, the fear, and the
frustration.  Most of it was residue from her visit, but a good portion
of it was anger at the casualty.  What if he had been killed?  How far
would this go?

As always, the anger and fear and frustration found an outlet in pure
physical excercise.  She need to work it off.  Perhaps someone at the
pratice grounds would be up for a bout, but at this hour?  It'd just
have to wait for morning.  Tonight, she could face the dreams that came
when she was feeling like this.

<All this tragedy is making me want to go out and flame something.>

<Go for it, you frogspawn pyromaniac,> Callana sent back.  <It's a
wonder I survived another year at all, especially with you itching at my
brain.>

<Hur.  Hur.  Hur.>

<I'm going to bed.  We have early patrol tomorrow morning.>

<No one can ever accuse you of sleeping in.>

<I'm going to eat something before I get weighed down by this spring
running the maple tree sap.>

<Not one of your better ones, dear.  You must be hungry.>

<Tramping about the wastes with a puny biped like you->

<Too bad stuffing your face doesn't plug your brain.>

<You should be so lucky.>

*I'll fly patrol tomorrow.. get Farr'in to finish off that draw.. find
out -yawn- who the little bastards across the warren are.. find time to
eat something, maybe make a friend or two-*

<Busy day tomorrow, eh?>

< * >  She had fallen asleep.

-----

Slaire stayed awake for a long time that night, monitoring her rider's
washy thoughts that came through in a dream.  She was watching for
nightmares, as she usually did when her rider got like this.  A subtle
thought insinuated here, a nudge there, and Callana could dream
peacefully all night long.

Slaire curled up on the floor of her cave, wrapping her tail about her
long form, tucked her wings about her.  She, too, was alone in the large
dwelling, which she noted was large enough for two dragons and two
humans.  She knew, without a doubt, that her rider had done this
unconciously.. more of that hope thing humans clung to.  There was
loyalty, and then there was hope.. and mixed up, Slaire thought
regretfully, especially in her rider, and in sad, depressing times for
her such as these- well, Slaire understood that she'd be sleeping alone
for a while yet.

------

..Yes..

Even in sleep, the strange, painfully familiar echo still reached her.

After Slaire fell asleep, the nightmares came again.  She was too
exhausted to wake up, but the dreams ran her mind ragged until she woke
up hours before dawn, bleary-eyed and painfully tired.  Her mind was
fogged with sleep, and her bed was still warm.  She sunk back down
beneath the blankets, feeling them envelop her like warm arms.  In the
few hours before dawn, when she was too tired to even consider thinking
about dreaming, she slumbered so deeply not even and earthquake could
have roused her.

-----------


Submitted by,
Keri Rodgers
Callana & Slaire

"I will go back to my forest too, but I do not know if I will live
contentedly there, or anywhere.  I have been mortal, and some part of me
is mortal yet.  I am full of tears and hunger and the fear of death,
though I cannot weep, and I want nothing, and I cannot die.  I am not
like the others now, for no unicorn was ever born who could regret, but
I do.  I regret."
	- Unicorn
	[The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle]