Masks

Writers: Duskdog
Date Posted: 19th October 2025

Characters: N'dhavi
Description: N’dhavi Impresses, and it’s unlike anything he expected.
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 12, day 14 of Turn 12
Notes: Mentioned: Sybana, K’valas, M’sar, Hesbia, Rathandra, Akadja

N'dhavi

The hatching sands shimmered with heat -- not enough to scorch, but enough to _feel_, enough to creep through the soles of Naldhavi’s sandals, enough to make his robe begin to stick uncomfortably to the sweat just beginning to stand out on his skin. But he had learned long ago how important appearances were, how much weight could be contained in someone’s bearing and in how they reacted to danger or discomfort. You had to _bear_ it. You couldn’t flinch. You survived by refusing to show weakness, by watching, by waiting for your opening.

Could dragons smell fear? The weyrfolk certainly seemed to think they were capable of _anything_, which he found hard to believe, but who could say? _People_ couldn’t smell fear, exactly, but they could certainly see it in you if you showed it, and he’d resolved to treat dragons the same way he would treat people, just in case. Regardless, the stands were full of people watching, people _judging_, making bets on who would walk away with what, and who would be found wanting. If he showed weakness here, they would see it, and the thought made disgust curl in his belly.

So he didn’t flinch, or shift his feet from the heat beneath them. He already felt more than a little stupid -- a grown man in a pristine white dress (_robe_, supposedly, but he didn’t care to mince words -- if it was long enough to cover his ass and didn’t have legs, it was a _dress_), standing out here in front of everyone amongst a crowd that ranged from young men with hair on their chest to little bitty girls who would get trampled by the smallest green if they were too stupid to move. He couldn’t even recall what the minimum age for candidacy was; he just knew some of these children were both too young and too soft to be here. That’s what an upbringing in the Holds and Halls and _especially_ the Weyrs would get you: kids who looked and acted like babes, who had probably never had to work a day in their lives, unless you counted “chores”.

Half of them clearly didn’t realize that this was a proving ground. They hung back, letting other, bolder candidates step up to make themselves seen first -- as if there weren’t only fifteen eggs here, as if they had the luxury of waiting.

Some of them did, he supposed. He did not.

He didn’t allow himself to consider the possibility that there wouldn’t even _be_ a bronze here.

It all seemed to happen so fast, and yet somehow so slow. Eggs cracked all around him. He tried to keep an eye on everything at once, but his brain was busy trying to analyze each dragon that chose, and who and why it chose the way it did. (Maybe that was easier than the disappointment of contemplating why they didn’t choose _him_ -- even though what he wanted was greater than any of these.) Kavalas, with a green? His heart surged -- not because he had any love for Kavalas, but because a Holdless had stolen a dragon from that bitch Sybana, who was probably having a fainting spell now, and would need someone to fetch the smelling salts. He couldn’t help but smile at the thought, even as his brain puzzled over what that big brown would see in Mesarian, who clearly preferred to spend his nights ass-up. Hesbia with a blue? Unexpected -- but he had to smile at that, too. Hesbia was tough, for a girl, and more importantly, people wouldn’t like it. By the time a green chose Rathandra from the stands, he was barely resisting the urge to laugh out loud, but he couldn’t resist the urge to glance up at Sybana -- who, unfortunately, had not fainted, but looked exactly as uncomfortable as he expected her to (but only half as uncomfortable as he wanted her to be).

The only thing missing from this absolutely perfect performance was himself, and Akadja.

Blues and greens spilled forth, and he didn’t even look at them beyond a glance to see whom they chose. Irrelevant. Another brown hatched, and he considered, for a moment, if he would _settle_. If a brown would be better than no dragon at all.

No. Someone worthy of a bronze wouldn’t think that way, would they?

With so few eggs, and so few dragons left, there was no longer much to divert his attention from the egg when it cracked. He’ll always remember the sound -- dull and soft and slow, like stone put under too much strain. It was one of the largest eggs, but otherwise unremarkable until that slow crack gave way to reveal a bronze dragon more perfect than any he had ever seen: small, but with a dark, tarnished brass color to his hide. Still fresh and wet from the egg, under the lights of the hatching cavern, the less tarnished brassy undertones caught the light and gleamed, making him look almost as if he was lit from within.

The dragonet didn’t stumble. He didn’t rush. He simply _looked_.

His gaze was sharp and deliberate. Even from where he was standing, Naldhavi _felt it_ -- a weight pressing against his chest, as though the dragon were sifting through him, peeling him open layer by layer.

For an instant, he was almost _afraid_. Afraid of being _seen_, of being perceived as his real self -- a self that he sometimes couldn’t quite even pin down for himself, because he spent so much of his time wearing masks.

Others were moving, though -- the boldest of the boys, trying to make themselves _seen_. Naldhavi had no intention of letting fear or hesitation keep him from what was rightfully _his_. Even as his brain turned over the implications of these curious sensations, his legs were moving, his gaze was focused.

And then the bronze began to move, too. Straight toward him.
Naldhavi’s pulse stuttered in a way it never had before. He couldn’t make himself breathe.
He stopped in front of the dragon, and the dragon stopped in front of him. The world narrowed to whirling, molten eyes and the sudden rise of heat in his chest.

}:You should come to others as boldly as you come to me,:{ the dragon said in his head, the voice low and resonant, not quite a purr and not quite a growl, deep and elusive as curling smoke. }:Your masks are a waste of time. You’ll not need them with me.:{

Naldhavi almost swayed, his sure, resolute footing shaken for the first time since stepping on the Sands. It wasn’t like he thought it would be. It wasn’t like they said it would be, either, and yet it was -- he understood suddenly, distantly, why the dragonriders couldn’t really describe the weight of being _seen_, the buoyancy of being _wanted_, the certainty of being _one_. He was stripped bare, vulnerable in a way he had never been -- a way that meant the difference between being victor and victim, alive and dead, in his world -- and yet it was fine, it was _fine_, it was _more_ than fine.

A strangled laugh caught in his throat. To think he’d sought this out of spite. Something so _immense_, all-encompassing -- like a child brandishing a stick like a sword in the face of a charging herdbeast bull.

}:You play games,:{ the dragon agreed. }:I am Malzyveth. And we no longer have time for games.:{

The rest of the world broke open in a rush of noise -- cheers, shouts, maybe for him and maybe for others -- but it all sounded far away.

Malzyveth pressed his head against Naldhavi’s chest, the heat of his hide searing through the thin robe. Beneath the pounding of his heart, Naldhavi felt something else: a steady, powerful rhythm that wasn’t his own, settling into sync with his pulse.

}:Come,:{ Malzyveth murmured, quiet and sure. }:I am hungry. And we have waited long enough.:{

Naldhavi -- N’dhavi -- cupped the bronze’s powerful jaw with both hands for a moment, reveling in the feeling of oneness that made the overwhelming feel of shared, gnawing hunger not just bearable, but almost _desirable_, because it was another sign of their union, of the certainty that they would face everything together from now on.

“You’re right,” he said, reluctantly pulling his hands away. “Let’s go. Let them see us.”

For once, he wasn’t performing, or pretending. What the people in the Stands would see was N’dhavi, exactly as he was in this moment: Malzyveth’s rider.

Last updated on the October 19th 2025

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