2024-07-20 - 8.1- To Try

The bone-deep concern in the Weyr hangs over Diath like a cloud. She doesn't fully understand what's going on, lacks vital context by virtue of being an egg, but the gist of the situation is there.

Fighting Thread is supposed to be especially difficult today. The wings need help but won't get it. Even those with reassuring words can feel the tension. The underlying fear that the fighting pairs will die.

Even the thought rests heavy in her gut, makes her curl into herself as much as her tight confines will allow. She remembers her lost siblings, or at least the shapes that had filled the spots they used to sit. The same way she remembers the feel of the earth shaking- not so much a memory as a sense of wrongness, pain and fear, something beloved missing. Driving instinct into blatancy, the looming spectre of death.

She's tried not to think of flying Thread for just that reason. It will be her duty, she's certain, but the thought of those around her dying, of leaving a similar hole herself, is...

And yet those who could went out to fight anyway. Even now, when things would be harder, with yet more chance that they could die, could watch their fellows die. Diath is impressed as much as she's shamed by the thought of their strength, their dedication to their duty, when she- When she isn't strong, isn't brave. She doesn't know that she could do it, much as the knowledge of the aid they need (why will nobody give the aid they need?) burns something in her throat.

But the very idea, she quails beneath it, even as she tries to force such surety and courage from herself. These pairs weren't brought low so, many of her siblings, even those who had come to the Touching, the children-

Gwillanth perks up as the number of minds in the Weyr grows, and grows, and grows, anxiety and joy rising as one. Diath buoys herself upon it, stomach a knot waiting for the news.

No deaths.

It feels as if all the world has given a sigh of relief as bugles fill the air. A weight too big for one so small drops from her shoulders, the hard stone within her shrinking to something manageable as she allows herself to be buffeted about on the relief and happiness around her. Everyone is safe. Everyone is home. And for the moment that is enough to soothe her into exhausted sleep.

When she wakes, she'll think more about those options who walked through. She isn't brave, but maybe one of them can teach her how to be. Maybe one would be brave enough, strong enough, for both them without leaving her behind.

Maybe that's what the bond is for.