Jeriacor Trivail sat on a branch in a very tall in a tree, staring morosely out into the open air out beyond the trees. Well, the mostly empty air. The sort of empty air. The air that would have been empty if a certain pair of winged jerks weren't zooming around in it, taking up far too much space and ruining an otherwise pretty view. A view which Jeri had been enjoying, a few minutes ago, while he waited for a deer to come down the game trail fair below. But now, there weren't likely to be anything worth tracking, much less shooting, for miles. Not with all the noise they were making.

Rowan and Xetele. Xetele and Rowan. Pretty much inseparable, unless you counted when one was getting into trouble without the other, for once. When they were together, they were invariably getting into trouble, and apart they really weren't any better. Jeri didn't like either of them, and the feeling, he gathered, was mutual. In fact, there were times-- like now-- when Jeri really hated the pair of them.

He'd always been at odds with Rowan, from the very first time he'd met the mixed breed. Bad enough that Rowan was a fixed shifter, with bad blood on his father's side, so that he couldn't change his shape: breeding with other Archetype shifters was taboo, but breeding with humans was just disgusting, and a betrayal of the Fleshshifter kind, at that, since there was a rather nasty undeclared war going on between the species. Worse, then, that Rowan was a complete annoyance, always getting into trouble, always distracting everyone, always getting a laugh and drawing attention to himself.

"You're just jealous," 'Trina had told him angrily the other day, when he'd complained about it one too many times. "Everyone likes Rowan, because he's fun and nice-- and you're just a prune, so nobody likes you."

That was worst of all, Jeri thought. Altrina, his younger sister and the person he loved most in the world, liked Rowan better.

Jeriacor gave up on his game trail as Xetele swooped overhead once more, in hot pursuit of the very object of Jeri's so-called jealousy, who was laughing loudly and being followed-- at quite a distance-- by the horrible little bat-flitter, Hiss, who seemed to like no one. No birds came thundering out of the tree, like you would think when a dragon flew past, no small animals ran for cover, because they had all done that ages ago. The tree actually leaned slightly, as they passed; Xetele was starting to get big, and he was only a year old. Jeri swung down to the next branch, slinging his bow over his shoulder and starting the descent, thoughts only half on the trip down-- he was a squirrel, after all; climbing down a tree was nothing-- and already moving to the second half of that hated pair.

Xetele. Jeriacor didn't like him much, either, especially since Xetele seemed to think it great fun to play his pranks and jokes on him whenever he had the chance. Even if the thing hadn't been every bit as annoying as Rowan-- Altrina even cooed over him, as if the horrid, multi-headed thing were a very large cat or dog or something-- Jeri thought he would have hated him. He was Rowan's dragon. Rowan, somehow, had managed to bond a dragon. Sure, he was a rotten sort of dragon, but still-- a dragon!

Not that Jeri had really ever considered bonding a dragon-- not those Geperna ones, anyway, and that was all that bred at the Aerd. Rumor had it that what one of them knew, the Lady Drakiera knew, and Jeriacor didn't like that thought at all. But if the opportunity to bond something else had come up, he expected he would have considered it. Now, though, Rowan had bonded one, and Jeriacor was inexplicably infuriated by that fact.

Maybe 'Trina was right and he was jealous....

Easier to just say competitive. Rowan had gotten ahead of him, again, in their unofficial and unspoken competition, and in a way Jeriacor had not only not expected, but had no way to counter. Not unless he wanted to subject himself to a Geperna and Drakiera's watchful eye, anyway.

All this ruminating was getting him nowhere but worked up. He'd lost the deer, and he'd lost this game trail-- but there would be game elsewhere, and a good hunt would calm him down. Though he wanted to be a mage, he really did enjoy hunting....

An hour later, he'd chased down a plump hare, caught it, and released it again. The Aerd didn't need paltry meat like that, and it was the hunt, not the death at the end, that Jeri enjoyed. He made his way empty-handed back to the Aerd feeling much more relaxed, though he wasn't looking forward to actually reaching the Aerd. The whole valley the dragonry was nestled in was buried under at least a foot of snow. Constantly, no matter what the season. Currently, outside the valley, the mountains were in full summer. Inside, it would be just as cold as ever.

So, it wasn't with reluctance that he paused when something large and black scuttled across the path and disappeared into the underbrush on the other side. Jeri stood still a moment, wondering if he had time to make another hunt... deciding that he did. He turned off the path, carefully avoiding the brush, after the black creature he'd only just glimpsed. It wasn't anything special, just a remarkably large rat, but one only improved at something with practice, and it was as much practice to track a rat as a rabbit.

Only Jeri quickly discovered that this was an extraordinarily intelligent rat, or an extraordinarily lucky one. Over the course of another hour, he'd lost the trail three times, only to find it again just as he was about to give up each time; the quarry had skipped the river twice, backtracked three times, and scampered over a rocky patch once. The only way to explain some of the things that rat did was that it knew it was being followed, and was taking pains to make its trail as difficult to follow as possible. One would think that a black rat the size of a small cat would be easy to track, but nooooo....

Finally, Jeri sat back on his heels with an exasperated sound, staring at the end of his current set of tracks. The rat had skipped across the stream yet again, he guessed, and he couldn't find where it had come out anywhere. His only thought was that it had decided to go for a swim, or... something. It was almost sunset; it was time for him to head back.

"My, but you are focused when you're on a problem, aren't you?"

Jeriacor fall flat on his rear with a yelp of surprise, but rallied quickly, a ball of bright, white energy coming to his hand almost automatically, ready to be thrown.

"Relax, relax, I give up! I didn't do anything!"

There was laughter in that voice, but there wasn't malice, either, and Jeriacor scrambled to his feet when he recognized the pointed face of Tavarez, the Rattai-- or rat-shifter-- staring down at him from above.

"It was you!" he exclaimed. "I should have known-- no animal is that smart."

"I thought I was rather clever, yes," Tavarez preened teasingly. "You did, of course, miss that in these tracks, I was walking backwards."

Completely flabbergasted, Jeriacor glanced down-- he had no idea how to tell if something was walking backwards! But, then, no simple game animal would ever think of that.... He shook his head. "I need to stick to dumber animals, I think."

"Maybe you just need to remember how many of us so-called animals out there aren't, entirely," Tavarez suggested. "Heading back to the Aerd, before I distracted you, were you? Mind if I tag along?"

"Go ahead," Jeri shrugged, brushing off his trousers and starting back towards the path. He hadn't forgotten that Tavarez had not only just led him on a difficult chase through the underbrush, but, much worse, he'd been the one to send Rowan off to bond Xetele at the Bipedra, and the one to give Rowan the flitter egg. As if Rowan needed two accomplices!

"Something bothering you?" Tavarez asked innocently as he fell in behind him.

"No," Jeri said shortly.

Tavarez, however, was not fooled, and nor was he impatient. In fact, he was rather persistent. Several questions later, Jeriacor finally exclaimed, "It's Rowan! All right? Gods," he added for good measure, tone exasperated.

"Ah," Tavarez responded simply, as if he knew all about Rowan, Xetele, and Jeriacor's little problem with them. Then, after a moment of silence, he continued. "Don't you remember? I promised you your time would come, didn't I?"

Actually, Jeri did remember, he just hadn't expected it to come of anything. "Yeah. And what's that supposed to mean?"

"I thought that was clear enough," Tavarez replied. "I meant I'd have somewhere for you to stand for a dragon, when the right hatching came up."

Jeriacor shot him a sour, skeptical look. "Yeah, when the right hatching comes along. When'll that be? Another year? Two, maybe?"

"Actually," Tavarez said politely, ignoring Jeri's tone as if it were even more adolescent and childish than Jeri thought it was, "I have one in mind that should hatch within the week. If you're interested, that is...." Bright black eyes twinkled with more merriment than they should be holding, in the face of a disgruntled and, now, slightly stunned youth. "You are interested, aren't you?"

"Well, yes--"

"Then it's settled! I'll be glad to get a friend of mine to take you along, whenever you're ready. Tomorrow too soon?"

Now feeling rushed and a little overwhelmed, Jeri began, "But where--"

"Nidus Avengaea. It's the first non-native dragonry on the planet-- and the only non-native dragonry on the planet, as I recall."

That one not even Jeriacor had heard of.

"So. Tomorrow?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure."

"Excellent!"

Then they stepped into the Aerd Valley, and the icey wind stole away their words, even if they had any desire to do anything then except race to the Aerd as quickly as they could, before they froze. By the time they reached it, Jeri was feeling much better about the whole thing. This would be, he hoped, his chance to get even with Rowan.

Chapter Two

Back