Everything’s Lost To The Wind (2/5)

Writers: Avery
Date Posted: 2nd May 2026

Characters: Irrkali, Xehanis
Description: Irrkali sits with her son’s body.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 9, day 28 of Turn 12
Notes: Mentioned: Talryne, Kapera, N’vanik (indirectly), T’zha, Alidre, A’khal, R’kehr
This is a followup to “Leaf On The Wind” from last year - the storm Threadfall. Part 2 of 5.

**My son is dead.**

The thought roiled through Irrkali’s mind constantly, sounding like an
ocean wave that rushed in and out and forward and back across the
beach sand, like the echo of a sound yelling down a canyon and hearing
it bounce back and forth, constantly distorting and then
recrystallizing. The grief in the thought crushed her chest and
trapped her breathing, threatened to drown her in it, drag her under
and leave her floundering in a storm of despair. Her son was gone, the
one she’d loved and carried, and without him what was left in the
world for her? How could she have outlived him? It wasn’t fair, it
wasn’t right, that he was here cold and she was still breathing, that
she could have to face -

}:I am here. I love you,:{ interjected Jeath softly. The green dragon
was uninjured physically, and was sitting on the Weyr Rim pressed up
against other dragons for comfort. }: You are not alone. I know your
hatchling is gone. I know it is terrible. But I am here with you.:{

It didn’t make sense. It couldn’t be true. She had waved at him _that
morning_ in the Dining Hall, in the pre-dawn hours when all riders who
wanted food before the Threadfall were fueling up to be able to endure
the upcoming flight. She’d just seen him alive and hearty…

But his body was right here in front of her.

If he was going to be dead, she wished he’d never fallen off his blue.
That when Echovath had gone /between/, so had I’rad. That he’d never
been separated from his dragon, that he’d never faced a choice to
make. She wished she didn’t know that he had _made_ a choice.
Unfortunately, he had. And she knew that.

He hadn’t even tried to stay. Hadn’t tried to see if he could go on
without Echovath. Others had done it. There was an entire group for
dragonless riders at Dolphin Cove. The Weyrleader’s weyrmate, Talryne.
The ex-Weyrwoman, Kapera. Multiple others. He could have given it a
few weeks before deciding. He could have said goodbye. Could have
spoken to her. To his sisters. To the rest of his family.

His sisters. Neither was at the Weyr. Alidre was at the Harper Hall;
Irroska, at the Printer Hall. It had been just her and I’rad still at
the Weyr. Both would need to be gathered up and informed. Shards, she
didn’t want to do it. The Healer had yelled at her not to go /between/
any time soon. But what choice did she have? She couldn’t send someone
else to tell them that their brother was dead. And what about the rest
of their family? Her parents, back at Dragonsfall, who doted on their
grandchildren. Her brother T’zha, out at Igen. His sister Kalizha, at
Ista. So many to let know. I’rad was the first in the entire family to
die.

And it didn’t feel real. But it was true.

She’d first learned it through Jeath. (At the thought of her dragon’s
name, she reached out desperately for her dragon’s mind, received
another wash of love and affection and promise that they were
together.) During the end of the Threadfall, after she had helped
A’khal save R’kehr, Jeath had told her that Echovath was gone. Jeath
had keened the mourning cry. Because Jeath knew Echovath was gone in
that bone-deep way dragons knew. And that meant Irrkali knew deep in
her own gut that I’rad was no longer alive, because she’d thought
Echovath’s death meant I’rad was gone with him.

It felt like her heart had turned to ice and then shattered, like a
frozen sheet of ice on a lake when a rock was thrown into it. Her
emotions had become too much, and then had turned into a numb
nothingness. She’d finished the Fall, somehow. She didn’t know how.
Turns of training and drills had given her the ability to carry out
her duty to flame what got through to the Queen’s Wing.

But it had slowed her reaction times. A tendril of still burning
Thread had struck her arm, burning through her riding leathers and
into her flesh. She’d skipped /between/ to freeze it off, and had
gotten back into battle because the wing was down enough people they
needed everyone who could fly and flame still, and it wasn’t her
dominant arm, and she couldn’t race back to the Weyr and the Infirmary
for something so minor when Jeath had plenty of flame remaining…

She’d finished the Threadfall, reported back with the rest of the
queen’s wing, met quickly with the rest of wing leadership. When one
of the goldriders had seen her jacket split open and arm laced with
Threadscore, she’d been told to go to the Infirmary then and join
debrief later. So she’d dragged herself there to get it taken care of.

She barely remembered waiting in the Infirmary area to be treated. It
had taken a bit. Her Scoring hurt badly, now that the adrenaline rush
of flying Fall was over and she was sitting still, but she wasn’t
severely bleeding or at risk of death. The triage healer had given her
numbweed and a drink for the pain. Finally a Master Healer had taken
her back and examined her arm, saying it would need a disinfection and
stitches, and to be kept bandaged for a few days and then brought back
for a checkup.

He’d numbed her up. Started the stitches. Then he’d asked her gently
what she knew about her son. She didn’t know what she’d said to him
about it, but she remembered what Xehanis had said back to her. She’d
remember it with far too much clarity for the rest of her life.

Thread had hit Echovath. The blue had died. I’rad had been knocked out
of the saddle, though, and fallen free. She hadn’t caught that
information during Fall. He’d been brought back by E’tariax. Still
alive when he made it to the Infirmary. Xehanis had seen him. Had told
him they’d need to take the leg. But I’rad had known that Echovath was
gone. He’d demanded to follow.

Xehanis hadn’t told her more. He hadn’t needed to.

He’d finished the stitches while she called him out for not doing
enough to save her son, his hands patient and steady and his voice
neutral despite her rain of invective. He’d finished his work, wrapped
it in bandages, then told her the timeline for coming back. She’d
listened and nodded, but it had barely sunk in. The only thing that
mattered was when he told her not to go /between/ again while it was
healing, because she already risked infection with multiple trips
through. She’d raised her voice and said she wouldn’t let anyone else
take the body of her son /between/. He finally said she could do it
but would have to come back every day for the next sevenday. She’d
agreed because she had to.

Then he’d led her back here, and she’d seen I’rad’s body, and she’d
collapsed to the floor to weep.

At some point she’d stood up to see his face, traced her fingertips
along his features that she knew so well, remembering them as a baby
and as a youth and as a young man. At some point she’d grabbed his
hand to hold it, marveling at how small it still felt in hers, aching
at how cold it was. At some point her knees couldn’t hold her
standing, and she’d made it into the chair. At some point she stopped
weeping. At some point, the curtain that divided this cubicle from the
next one over had been pulled closed.

Irrkali didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there. Long enough
that her rear end was numb. That the painkiller was wearing off her
arm. That the leg she’d crossed over another leg had gone numb. Then
it had gone past numb and become an tingling, prickling sensation,
that started as an itch and became pain and then settled again into a
numb burn. It didn’t matter to Irrkali. It was just physical pain. She
could ignore that. What did physical pain matter?

Her son was dead. Nothing could compare to that.

Last updated on the May 24th 2026

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Everything’s Lost To The Wind (2/5)