2024-07-13 - pondering the wreckage |6.6|

A strange swoop of a feeling to watch and hear and witness a confrontation through so many eyes, filtering through so many different voices. Knuadth is horrified at the swell of anger, and the lingering bitter taste of it, the recoiling sense of many of the watchers also barely being able to watch. But they do. And beneath the horror, there is... the bones of something else. Interest. Fascination, also bitter-tasting, acrid with the force of the emotions unearthing it.

Why are they fighting? What does any of it mean? Some of it is about flying, about the riders, but picking it apart is so hard when so much is just venom. Utaibath having the worst pick, the rider who never wanted Ansith - are these true? What does being the worst pick mean? Does the rider not love Ansith because he can be so cruel? But Utaibath is cruel too in her fury, cruel and savage. What does it mean for someone to not be good? All of this... could it apply to him one day too? Could he pick someone who he shouldn't have, because there is no one else? What if he picks someone who acts as Ansith's rider does? Could his rider - still such an odd, far-off concept, to have someone like Mother has Shayled - not want him?

Surely not. Surely he can avoid that. Everyone likes him and his siblings, he can feel it whenever they check on them.

Mother's words reaffirm that hope - seeing things that aren't there. Both dragons simply became very afraid, and very stupid with it. Knuadth will be more careful! He will make sure he never has cause to be so afraid, or so angry. Or so hurt.

He repeats this many times in the cooling aftermath, to make sure he believes it.