Vayne

The wind had been screaming over the headland all day and whipping over the clifftop to send a backdraft down into the hemlocks, which groaned as they swayed. B and Vayne had put up small, strong lean-tos over the nests; everyone else just had to hurry around at their chores, constantly looking up and trying not to get hit by falling fir cones or bits of branches. Next thing I knew, the air was damp, rain began to rattle against the canopy, and Azurelle was roaring for the library helpers to come close the shutters.

Rain is normal here on the edge of the delta, but not like this rain. Usually it’s like a slightly heavy fog; this was like an angry waterfall. Everyone dashed for the nearest entrance to the lair. There wasn’t time to light the lamps in the library, so once we got the shutters closed and barred, me and Kaas held still while Azurelle felt his way around.

“Good work,” he said when there was some light. “Now, let’s go and get warm.”

The kitchen’s the biggest room in the lair, the only place where more than two of our really big clan members can be in the same space at once. We found Philoxus and Vayne in there with their son Brer, and my friend Rhiain, and Vincente, who apparently hadn’t made it inside in time to avoid getting soaked. He was making unhappy little sounds by the stove as he tried to groom the water out of his plumage. Me and Kaas went over to Rhiain, who had already set up a game of runestones with Vayne and Brer.

“Who else made it inside?” Azurelle asked Vayne.

“There are a few still out there that I know of, but we don’t know who else might be in other parts of the lair. Grogol went out to see if he could round anyone up.”

Grogol eventually came back with Tephra and Strid. We started up some more games, and eventually a rumble and a shower of soil announced Suthe’s arrival through one wall.

“Hello,” she said as Grogol hurried over to clean dirt from her head as it stuck out of the soil. “Hi, Grog. Sorry, Azurelle, I know you didn’t want any more tunnels directly into the kitchen, but B wanted to know who else was inside. You all haven’t seen Maliberte, have you?”

We all shook our heads.

Strid frowned. “He was supposed to bring the scouts back some time ago. They’re probably just sheltering somewhere.”

“He is a very capable pathfinder,” Vayne said reassuringly.

Just then, the two coatls stopped humming at each other and turned their heads towards the entrance. Their crests raised up. Vincente, whose draconic is slightly better, said, “Sound.”

“You hear something?” said Vayne.

“Yes.”

“From outside, or from somewhere else?”

“Outside.”

Vayne and Azurelle made eye contact, and then Vayne went up the tunnel. Brer got up and went to follow her, but Strid shook her head at him. In the quiet, we could all hear the rain thrumming outside, and then the crack of a branch breaking. The coatls flared their crests even higher, tensing as they strained towards the door. Rhiain pressed her shoulder into mine.

Vayne’s tail vanished up the tunnel.

Strid moved to follow, but Vincente had already bounded past her and stood in the open tunnel entrance in a rigid pose, tail up and head feathers standing on end. He waited there until a large shadow approached him, and only turned back when it resolved into Vayne, and behind her, Maliberte. He had something over his shoulder, steadied in the crook of one arm, which he only put down once the little procession reached the big stove.

It was a mirror dragon. I’d never seen one before. She was the color of wild roses and elderberry juice. She looked at me with her teeth and I backed into Kaas, but the mirror was panting with fatigue and obviously half-fainted, and she didn’t move from the hearth.

“Brer,” said Vayne, and murmured half a dozen words into his ear. He went to the larder and brought back a basket of food, which he shyly offered to the mirror.

Kaas, Rhiain, and I went back to our runestones game, but we weren’t really paying attention. Brer had begun talking to the mirror, and we all pretended not to eavesdrop until Suthe decided to come the rest of the way through the wall. Then we gave up and shyly crept closer, behind Vayne, as she and Brer explained to the mirror where she was. She didn’t know. She’d been blown off-course in the storm. Mirrors aren’t long-distance flyers anyway; she smelled exhausted and a little frightened.

Later, when the stove was banked and the mirror deeply asleep in front of it, Brer came back over.
“Did you hear?” he murmured to us. “She wants to start her own clan. Like B.”

“She didn’t pick a good season for it,” said Rhiain with feeling as a gust of wind made the rain patter harder outside.

“She picked a season when no one else is going to be searching for territory,” he said. “Think about it! What other time of year would you be able to test the waterproofing of your lair, and the windiness of someplace you were thinking about living?” He looked back towards the sleeping mirror dragon. “Anyway, she’s very determined.”

“What are you going to do, go with her?” I asked, half-joking, but he looked at me in a way that wiped the smile right off my snout.

To one side of us, Vayne uncoiled herself and turned her head in our direction. We all stared guiltily, wondering if we had woken her up by talking too loudly.

“Brer,” his mother said gently, in the tone she uses with the hatchlings when they’re being contrary.

He ducked his head, and his mouth worked for a moment. “She doesn’t even know where she’s going, and she flew for an hour which is a long time for a mirror, and the storm wouldn’t let her land, and her clan all laughed at her when she said she wanted to leave, and her own mother told her she was going to fail, and she’s all alone and I just can’t believe that we’re going to let a dragon like that leave without sending someone along to make sure she’s okay.”

Such a long speech was unusual for Brer. Vayne sat still through it, but she put a motherly wing over him when he had finished.

“Listen, youngling,” she said. “Starting a clan is hard, serious work. It requires forethought and planning, not just luck. You’ve only just met this mirror, and it’s clear to me that you’ve thought more about the ramifications of her attempt more than she has.”

Brer’s head went down.

“But starting a clan also needs determination,” Vayne continued. “The kind of determination that keeps you aloft in a squall.” She reached over and lifted Brer’s chin. “I can’t permit or forbid you to do anything you want to do. That’s something you must decide for yourself. But I want you to think about it seriously before you choose one way or another,” she added when he opened his mouth. “Let’s introduce your new friend to B and Cruach in the morning. I’m sure she can stay until she’s recovered. Until then, consider all it would take to accompany her.”

A ripple ran down Brer’s body. “I will!”

He turned back to our abandoned game with renewed cheerfulness, but Vayne was still looking at him with a soft, sad expression. I suddenly felt a little ill watching my friends play runestones. I thought I knew which way Brer was going to choose, and I think his mother did, too.