The Passage of Time
Dragonsfall Weyr
Amber Hills Hold
Vintner Hall
Healer Hall
Hidden Meadows
Dolphin Cove Weyr
Dolphin Hall
Emerald Falls Hold
Harper Hall
Printer Hall
Green Valley Hold
Leeward Lagoon Hold
Barrier Lake Weyr
Sunstone Seahold
Citrus Bay Hold
Writers: Devin, Len
Date Posted: 23rd November 2025
Characters: N'vanik, Sh'del, Z'kim
Description: After laughter and memories with N'vanik, Sh'del thinks back to the worst moment of his life
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr, NPC Weyr
Date: month 10, day 8 of Turn 12
N'vanik was so crazy. Sh'del lay his head back on the pillow on his bed and laughed to himself. It was nice having an evening with his old friend--in truth, his best friend--and remember their days fresh out of weyrlinghood. Wonder what 'eww boys' N'vanik would make of the more mature version of himself now? Sh'del snorted to himself as he pushed on the pillow to get more comfortable. Trouble must have been sleeping on it when he wasn't looking, naughty girl that she was. He looked over to where she was fussing over a fluffy blanket and trying to get just the perfect wallow in it. She was so small, even for a green, so small and so bright green, like that first flush of grass in the spring. She looked just like...the thought caught Sh'del hard.
}:She looks just like Benanth:{
Sh'del startled and glanced over to his brown's wallow. **You remember Benanth?**
}:Of course, she was our first Flight. And we won.:{ Loranth's tone was smug.
We were her only Flights, Sh'del thought privately. P'ven only ever knew Sh'del, no other man. A pain so sharp the passage of time had never managed to erase sat on Sh'del's chest and stole his breath. P'ven, so cute with the drimples and the curly black hair, with his large brown eyes that only ever looked at Sh'del. P'ven, who was the first person Sh'del had ever been with, which was the reason when a tiny, bedraggled Loranth had all but sat on his foot before Sh'del was convinced he was now the rider of a brown, not a blue. P'ven, who never...who...
}:I miss them too:{
**How do you remember them?**
}:How could I forget?:{
How indeed. But there were parts that Sh'del wished he could forget...
~~flashback~~
There was something wrapping around Sh'del's heart, something dark, wrapping and squeezing so hard he couldn't breath. His vision was dim, he didn't even know where they were.
}:We're At Dream's End Weyr. Loseth gave me the coordinates and I brought you. You need your friends.:{
Sh'del half nodded, half glanced out to where the brown--now grey with grief--stood beside a much larger bronze and a smaller green.
N'vanik had wrapped a blanket around his friend's shoulders and sat next to him on the couch. "Sh'del? Hey, man, are you with me?" His voice was soft and worried. Shards, P'ven.
The blanket didn't--couldn't--warm him. "They...they were just there...and...and..."
}:We tried to save them, we were too late:{ Loranth told Loseth, his mind speak sorrowful. It wasn't just Sh'del who had lost his mate. ]: I'll never see Benanth again.:{
Sh'del listened to his dragon and dropped to his knees, a strangled cry coming out.
"Hey, hey. I'm here. I've got you." N'vanik followed his friend to the floor and put an arm around him.
"Sh'del?" Z'kim called from the ledge entrance. "What's going on? Warroth said--"
"P'ven and Benanth," N'vanik told him, his eyes carrying the echo of his friend's grief.
Z'kim sucked in a breath. "Oh. Oh, darling, I'm so sorry." This sharding Pass, so much death and maiming and suffering.
Vaguely Sh'del was aware of his friends around him, of N'vanik's arm around his shoulders. He let himself collapse against his friend's side, almost unable to breath from the pain in his chest. Ragged sobs came out of his mouth but he didn't recognise them as his own. Only Loranth's mind tied to his kept him sane.
Unsure what to do, Z'kim went over to sit on the edge of the couch.
N'vanik held Sh'del and let him cry, occasionally murmuring soothing words. He thought of P'ven smiling and teasing, how happy he and Sh'del had been together.
Sh'del lost any sense of time in his friends' presence. His mind was outside of time, leaving his body a broken heap in N'vanik's arms. And in that deep darkness was the warm presence of his dragon. Of Loranth, his hide almost as dark as Sh'del's grief, so sleek and graceful, so unlike Sh'del. His calmness--despite his own grief--was what pulled Sh'del back from that tunnel with no light at the end of it.
"Sh'del?"
He sat up, back in his dark weyr at Dolphins Cove, his mind still back at the windswept Weyr of Dream's End. That voice, it was N'vanik's...it was P'ven's. He brought his hand up to his face wet with tears. It never got easier, it never would.
}:No, but we save the youngsters so they never feel that pain.:{
And we hide that pain from everyone else. Everyone but N'vanik and Z'kim.
Sh'del reached over and pulled his green flit into a hug, letting more tears fall onto her hide.
On the other side of the Weyr, N'vanik was drifting to sleep, smiling a little. Sh'del had been the one to make him realize that some brownriders liked men, and while that had been a surprise, N'vanik had accepted his relationship with P'ven easily enough. They'd been an odd trio of friends at Vista Point -- him and Sh'del and P'ven.
Then he remembered how that had ended. P'ven taken by Thread, Sh'del drowning in grief.
N'vanik held Talryne a little closer.
Last updated on the December 30th 2025