[Katla]

Someone was sobbing.

Katla could hear it, but it didn't seem to reach her.  They had
cleared the area, the remaining eggs had hatched -- all but one --
but it all seemed so unreal.

Someone was in pain.

She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to focus past the rage and
the disbelief.  This hadn't happened.  It couldn't have happened.  It
wasn't real...

But it was.

He was curled up on the sands, alone in the midst of the pandemonium.
 Sobbing.

Oldreth.

Something in her blossomed and died.  It might have been outrage.  It
might have been pity.  She couldn't be sure.  She knew that he had no
business on the hatching sands, however, no more than he had had in
the skies over Windtide or straining himself in tracking Xanthia's
attacker.

"Oldreth.  You've got to get up."

He didn't seem to hear her and she tried to shake his shoulder, only
to overbalance and fall to the ground in a tangle of crutches and
awkward angles.

"DAMNIT."  Her voice rose sharply and he seemed to look up.  "Fuck
it.  Oldreth, what are you doing here?  You're injured."

"The explosion --"

Something in her snapped.  "Well, duh.  But why are *you* here? 
Think the rest of us aren't competent to deal with this?  Are you
trying to kill yourself?  You certainly seem to have a death wish!"

He stared at her in a mix emotions that she couldn't read, and wasn't
sure she cared to.

"Katla..." came a gentle voice behind her and she closed her eyes,
trying to bring her breathing under control.  Kanler.

"This isn't happening.  I don't need this.  Oldreth in a heap in
front of me, probably having torn more of his stitches, and me not
able to have a hope in hell of moving him.  This is not happening..."

"Katla..."

"...It's not enough that he put himself and his queen in danger over
Windtide, killing and injuring several riders in the process... 
Selfish lout doesn't care enough about Wintermoon to care for himself
and runs out into danger without thought to the consequences.  Why
me?  What did I do?"

"Katla, that's enough."  Sterner this time, almost enough to stem the
flow of misplaced rage but she was still shaking with it.  She was
still having nightmares about the boy in Windtide, the one who had
died because of the other dragon's instinctive desire to protect a
queen.  In the past few months she had been exposed to more death and
destruction than she had known previously in her lifetime and the
responsibilities placed on her, by the Warren and by her own heart
made her want to scream and rage and destroy things...

And Oldreth was a perfect target.  She hadn't had a chance before, to
tell him what she thought of his actions.  Hadn't had a chance to
confront him with the extent of his irresponsibility.  Wouldn't ever
have had it, since she firmly believed that it was Trinale's business
and not hers to discipline a junior queenrider, but this... this was
more evidence of Oldreth's cavalier attitude and she wasn't sure she
could take it.

"Take him to the Med Center, please, Kanler.  Maybe they should strap
him down.  That might have a chance of keeping him out of trouble." 
Katla forced herself to her feet.

"You should talk."

Damn.  He'd been talking to Derry again.

"Just get him away from me."  The rage and helplessness in her voice
seemed to convince Kanler, who bent to help Oldreth up.  Dark eyes
looked into the junior queenrider, and she knew he could see the fury
burning there, some of it even directed at him, but most of it
impotent and bitter and full of pain.  "I'm going to take a look
around."

"Okay."

[Tag, Barb, Rob -- well, you wanted Oldreth noticed... ;)]


-----
[Derry]

"But why Derry!?!" Why did Barry have to die!! He never hurt anyone
before!!! It's not fair!!"

Derry held the boy despite the pain from his own injuries, rocking
him as he cried.  "I know.  I know, Jean-o."

"But why?"

Derry thought for a moment, trying to find a way to explain the
senseless violence to his new baby brother.

"Sometimes, Ojean, when someone is particularly good or particularly
brave, the Gods are so delighted by them that they are gathered to
the halls of the dead.  That's what Papa told me once, long ago. 
Barry was a good man, and a brave one."  The boy sniffled and Derry
pressed a kiss into the boy's hair.  

"I don't want him to be with the gods.  I want him here, with us."

"I know."  The boy's tears welled up again and Derry wept with him,
not so much for Barry, who he'd hardly known, but for all of
Whiteriver's dead.  Cricket was terribly injured, as was Levka.  It
was going to be a long while before either dragon would recover. 
"But I *know* he is safe and happy where he's gone, Jean-o.  So don't
fear to say goodbye to him.  He'll hear you and know you love him."


-----
[Katla]

Katla didn't go to the memorial service, something that she knew
would probably disappoint Shawnee, but since she'd barely known Barry
-- she had her entire wardrobe from home after all -- and since she
needed to do something, anything, about the situation, she chose to
go to Marketa.

Kanler came along, which was not entirely surprising.  She knew he'd
spoken to Derry and 'Tinka about the whole process and probably
wasn't particularly pleased about the whole thing.  But she had to do
it.

Catfooted and lethal, Telven approached them when they entered the
city.

"I hadn't thought to see you again, lady."

"I love you, too," Katla snapped.

"Testy today, aren't we?"

"Yeah.  You could say that."  Her eyes were dark and she grimaced. 
"I've got some questions about a... religious order."

"An abbey?" he asked, using an archaic slang for whorehouse.  She
shook her head.

"No.  It's... a group headed by a... blind woman, or so I'm told." 
Katla passed over one of the wooden coins that were becoming
ubiquitous around the Warren.

He turned the coin over in his hand.  "I may have heard something."

"I may have money for information."

Telven laughed.  "I hope so."

She smiled slightly.  "There have been... problems.  I need to know
who is causing them and why.  The questions need to be quiet and, as
you know, I can pay..."

"Hmmm.  And you will.  Let me tell you the little I know..."

----
NRPG --

Well, I was going to have Katla be nice and all, but she had other
ideas.  I hadn't realized how much she still resents the Windtide
thing...  


*hugs*

Jill
             X-FILES                         DRAGONLANDS
 Director, X-Files Division           Rhiannon, WarrenLady  *Xylian*
 Sterling Kincaid, TL, ECHO           Elswyth and Aedra   *Keldarra*
 Damien Cunningham, Forensics         Katla and Satinka *Whiteriver*
 Xan X. Xavier, Trainer               Zera and Mazel       *Norwall*

                        Visit the XFRPG Web Site:
                http://www.steele.ml.org/~wiggly/xfiles/

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			      Vasaris, the Fuzzy Dragon
 Jill E. Flansburg	          |		            vasaris@az.com
 CS HMC 1994	                |		jflansbu@muddcs.cs.hmc.edu
 History, WWU 199?                |		vasaris@divcom.umop-ap.com
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