machlah

When Machlah first sat Carlton down and explained, very patiently and with enough pauses to catch his breath, what it meant to be born Afflicted, the first and only thing the days-old Tundra could think to ask was, "So is it catching?"

After a moment to process the question, Machlah started to laugh. The coughing set in quickly, but it was nice while it lasted. "Nah, kid," Machlah wheezed as he recovered. "It's a Coatl thing. My parents gave it to me in my blood, Mum rest them. A little furball like you will be fine."

"Hey!" Carlton bumped his head against Machlah's side in protest, but was careful to do so gently. Machlah had thin bones that broke easily, and in any case sudden jolts were liable to set off a coughing fit. Carlton hated the coughing; they made his friend's whole body shake and convulse and left Machlah too weak to stand, sometimes, until all Carlton could do was hug his friend until he could breathe again. "I'm going to grow up big and strong real soon, you just watch!"

"I hope you do," Machlah said, but his smile wasn't there anymore. His red Plague eyes shined starkly against his bone-pale plumage. "Don't count on me being around that long, though. The Afflicted aren't known for their lifespans, kid. My parents were half-dead by the time I hatched, and they were pretty near hatchlings themselves. They couldn't take care of me, so that's why - "

" - I'm going to take care of you instead," Carlton finished.

Machlah laughed shortly. "Kid, I can't ask that of anyone, and especially not you. Taking in an Afflicted is no joke. I'm in pretty bad shape now, and it only gets worse from here, from what I - " He started to wheeze, but kept talking anyway as Carlton stared up at him, aghast. "Kid, promise me - promise you'll leave me, when I ask, if not before. I don't - you shouldn't be around, not when I hit bottom. Got it, Carlton?"

Carlton, being a Tundra, doesn't remember things all that well. He couldn't pick his own parents out of a crowd if you asked him twice. But he does remember this conversation, mainly because Machlah had smelled so desperate and afraid and Carlton only wanted to make that smell go away, and he does remember that he said "yes." The smell did go away, but Carlton hated himself for it nonetheless.

So he pretended to forget and stuck close to his Coatl friend and watched Machlah grow up from a sickly hatchling to a too-small-for-his-age, impossibly-frail adult. Machlah's illness had sapped his magic as well as his strength, leaving him too weak to walk far unaided, much less fly at all. It slowed them down considerably as they made their way through the various flight territories, but Carlton didn't mind much. Tundras were slow by nature, and it wasn't like they had a destination or a timetable anyway.

Machlah suffered a sudden downturn soon after they reached the Starfall Isles. He never really recovered from it, and was now too weak to travel or even do the odd scribe jobs he'd done to support the pair of them. Carlton focused on nursing Machlah in the little cave he'd cleared for them on one of the lower cliffs of the Crystalspine Reaches, until their small moneybag ran empty and forced him away from his friend to look for a day's work. He rarely found it - apparently Tundra hatchlings were not high in demand for their work ethic or training capabilities - and three nights out of five they went to sleep hungry, which only made Machlah even sicker. He developed a fever that wouldn't go away, coughed for minutes on end, and when he wasn't coughing often had such trouble breathing that Carlton would have to put a paw on his friend's thin chest and press down, up, down, up, until Machlah found his rhythm again and drifted off to a restless sleep.

But Carlton was either an oblivious Tundra or just a really optimistic one, because he was totally convinced that Machlah would pull through this somehow right up until the day he came home to find Machlah coughing up blood.

"Machlah!" Carlton froze in the entryway, trying to process the sight and reeling from the overwhelming scent of copper. Machlah was caught in one of his coughing fits, but the coughs were deeper and wrenching and wet; he'd collapsed onto all fours, and with every shudder dark red blood spilled from his mouth and splashed into a growing puddle on the cave's dirt floor. With every inhale, fluid gurgled in his lungs - every exhale, more blood came up.

Carlton took a faltering step forward - to do what, he wasn't sure himself - but Machlah looked up then and froze him in his tracks a second time. "Get out," Machlah rasped. "Leave. Don't - come back."

"Machlah..."

"Remember when you promised - to leave when I asked," Machlah wheezed. "That's now. So go. Now. S'an order."

"No," Carlton said. He remembered saying "yes." He also remembered that he'd never truly meant it, especially not if it meant leaving Machlah to crumble alone in a land neither of them really knew. Not like this. "I won't leave you."

"Kid, I left my parents - so I wouldn't have to watch. I don't want you - to watch me, either - ah, Mum - " Machlah coughed harder. Blood splattered violently on the floor in front of him. Carlton rushed forward then, but Machlah shoved him back towards the door with surprising strength. "JUST GO OR I'LL KILL YOU MYSELF," he shrieked, his scent suddenly changing to something fearsome and full of death, and Carlton fled the cave in terror.

He didn't realize he was crying until he was down the mountain and back in the village where he'd spent the day looking for work, for food, for anything. He'd been unsuccessful, of course, because not many were interested in helping out a sick, dying Coatl and his even-more-useless Tundra hatchling friend. Carlton found himself an out-of-the-way alley, sat down hard on the grimy cobblestones, and bawled his little eyes out. If they couldn't get enough money for food or medicine, Machlah was going to throw him out so he could die alone. And Carlton was too slow to figure out anything to save Machlah. They were the worst pair in the history of Sornieth, no wonder Machlah was dying, there had to be something, anything he could do -

Carlton hiccoughed, looked up with bleary eyes, and met his salvation in the form of a faded poster glued onto the alley wall in front of him.

Ten minutes later, he marched into a low wooden building and placed the poster carefully onto a desk in front of him.

"Name gender breed flight coliseum level length and date of hatch," said the Spiral behind the desk, sounding as bored as she looked.

Carlton told her everything she wanted to know. She wrote it all down without blinking.

"Reason for entry."

My best friend is dying before my eyes and we can't afford the healers even if he doesn't starve to death first, this isn't fair he's only a few days older than me and the best dragon I've ever met and please oh please Firemum I'll do anything just please LET HIM LIVE.

Instead, Carlton said, "Is it true you pay an advance for volunteers?"



Machlah had scraped the cave floor clean of his blood by the time Carlton returned to the cave shortly after nightfall. He lay curled on his side under the thin blanket Carlton had scavenged for him, breathing unevenly and drifting in and out of sleep, but he snapped awake the moment Carlton entered. "Told you to go," he mumbled.

"Yeah, I know." Carlton lit a quick fire, then came closer to look at his friend. Machlah was born naturally pale thanks to the disease, but now he was even whiter, almost translucent. Blood still remained on his mouth and feathers, matching his glassy red eyes. "I got a job," Carlton lied. "Mining. Apparently they liked me 'cos I'm Fire. They leave tomorrow, but they paid me first, so I brought you something before I go. Fish soup, and there's medicine, too. You ready?"

"I was hatched ready," Machlah said, then coughed. Something bubbled at the corner of his mouth, but Carlton ignored it and helped him sit up. He did notice Machlah wince, because he was watching for it, and Machlah answered the question he didn't know how to ask. "It's not you, kid," he rasped. "Everything just hurts, these days. It's like - my whole skin is on fire, and there's a knife in my chest when it's real bad. I didn't tell you because it wouldn't change anything."

"I'm sorry." Carlton bit his lip, thinking back to what the Imperial healer down in the village had told him. Coughing up blood? It means his lungs are failing. If he's got a fever too, he must be in the end stages of being Virulent - that's when their Affliction just burns them up until they're gone. Look, even if you had twice as much money as you're giving me, I wouldn't be able to save him, especially not at this stage. You'll be lucky if he lasts until Saturnalia. I can only give you something to ease the pain. Yes, usually they suffer quite a bit from the pain, it gets to be excruciating in the final days, didn't he tell you?

"Don't be. Not your fault, or your problem." Machlah tried to eat by himself, but nearly dropped his bowl twice from shaking paws. Carlton had to hold up the bowl to his friend's mouth as he swallowed greedily, then did the same with the three vials of medicine. Machlah's fever seemed to drop immediately, and the Coatl sank gratefully against the Tundra's side with a sigh of relief, so there was that to be thankful for, at least. "M'sorry I yelled today," he mumbled into Carlton's neck, already half-asleep.

"It's okay. I understand." Carlton listened to his friend's breathing. There was a rattling quality to it that made him uneasy. He should've asked the healer about it. "I'll be out before you wake up. Keep taking the medicine until I come back, okay?"

"'Kay," Machlah breathed. "Be safe - in the mines." Then, just as Carlton was drifting off himself, Machlah curled tightly beside his one and only friend for the last time. "Glad I could see you grow up, kid."

Carlton didn't know what to say to that, and sleep pulled him down the rest of the way before he could decide.



Carlton forgot a lot of things: his parents' faces, what he was thinking ten minutes ago, what he was supposed to do now. But he never could forget Machlah's scent, which was emanating so strongly from behind him now that it made him want to throw up because he was waiting in a room with the other tributes for this thing he'd signed up for and Machlah should not be here.

Someone behind Carlton coughed, and he stiffened. He recognized the wet quality of that cough, too, and he didn't like it. "So is this what you called mining," said a voice Carlton also recognized, and Carlton whirled around to face Machlah for real.

"What are you doing here," Carlton hissed. Some of the nearby tributes were staring. It was a long morning of waiting, they were all bored and eager for this new entertainment. "How'd you even get here? Do you know what you're getting into?"

"As much as you do, kid," Machlah snapped. He swayed as he stood, but he was standing unassisted which was the first in a long while. "If I'd known you'd gotten me medicine with money from this, I'd have thrown it off the mountain! And I walked, obviously. Well, I caught a ride from a Ridgeback on her way here, and then I walked. She was nice, I'll introduce you if she doesn't kill us first."

Carlton wanted to smash his face against the nearest rock. "You know, I joined this to save you, not watch you get killed."

"Not like it matters much, furball," Machlah said. "I'm dying anyway."

"Don't say that!"

"Kid, it's true. I can feel it, I read enough about the Affliction to know what the end feels like. So I just wanted to do something before I go - one last hurrah, get my name in some books before I die - ugh, no - " Machlah suddenly staggered, clutching his chest. Carlton automatically pushed himself closer to catch his friend and break his fall as he collapsed. There was no coughing, but still something warm and wet soaked into Carlton's fur, and he shuddered when he realized Machlah was bleeding again. "The medicine can't fix me, kid," Machlah wheezed into Carlton's shoulder. "So let me have a little fun before I can't anymore."

Carlton stared ahead at the door that would lead them to their inevitable deaths for a long moment. "We're both idiots," he finally sighed. "And we're both going to die."

"Glad you finally caught on, kid," Machlah gasped, still planted into Carlton's back. "At least we get to go together. It sure was nice knowing you."

"Yeah," Carlton said, still staring ahead into the distance and trying not to cry. "Yeah, it really was."