A sample post... -- Lost Souls

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Date Posted: 02:48:26 12/09/04 Thu
Author: Grasscat
Subject: A sample post...
In reply to: Grasscat 's message, "His stats..." on 02:47:20 12/09/04 Thu

It was a hot day.
The middle of summer in Southern is not an ideal time to be fighting Thread, and M�tan was getting increasingly annoyed at the drops of sweat that rolled down between his shoulder blades. But he didn�t have much time to think of them while he was trying to avoid the falling silver organisms that were Thread.
Solarith beneath him was beginning to heave for breath. It was a long Fall and there weren�t enough dragons to rotate out, so the dragon would have to keep going the whole time � and nobody knew how long this would last. The thirty-year-old gave his dragon�s neck an encouraging pat as they flamed yet another long string, and there was no time for words.
Both were happy, though, fighting together against the menace that could destroy anything. As they struck yet another one, M�tan punched the air in triumph, as he had done when he was a weyrling, and smiled down at Solarith.
�Come on, Sol! Get every last bit!�
I will! We�ll keep going�
Until the pain struck both of them dumb.
One long strand had fallen behind them, the blue dragon at his back failing to flame it � he was occupied � and both dragon and rider cried out as it neatly sliced off the whole of Solarith�s long tail.
The tail in a dragon is used for balance in flight, and as Solarith�s fell to the floor, he could no longer control his movements. The other dragons in the wing tried to help him, striving to hold him up as he fought to regain his balance, but they couldn�t.
It was hopeless.
With a hoarse shout, M�tan felt his arm being wrenched nearly out of its socket as he was grabbed and yanked off Solarith�s back by an eager-to-help greenrider. �NO!� He shrieked as the brown entered between, but the rider held on to him, not allowing him to follow his lifemate into the abyss he so much wanted to embrace him. �Let me go, you stupid sharding eggbreaker! LET ME GO!� He screamed, seeing two other riders go between to try and locate Solarith.
But it was too late.
The other dragons couldn�t find him.
The greenpair took the screaming, struggling man down to the ground, enlisting the help of two waiting healers to drag him into a building, away from Thread. The keening death chorous rent the air.
�Solarith! No! Come back! Come back! What are you doing to me? Where�s Solarith? Where is he? Why am I here? I should be with Solarith! Where is he? I can�t hear him!�
The healers managed to force some fellis juice down his throat, and he slipped into oblivion�

�I�m really, really worried about him.�
The healer watched Martan with a frown, shaking her head.
He had just entered a room. He looked around, with a frown of his own creasing his gaunt face, blinked once or twice as though surprised, then turned slowly and made his way into the next room along that corridor.
�He hasn�t slept since Faranth knows when, and he eats less than he sleeps. He�s a walking skeleton.�
The two healers followed the man, standing out of his way, just watching him. He didn�t know they were there. His eyes were looking for only one thing, and he simply didn�t see anything else. It was quite disconcerting to just be looked through, and they had taken all the Weyrbrats into another part of the Weyr, so they didn�t annoy or be scared by this strange, haggard man.
�He always does this?� The healer from Healer Hall looked over to his colleague, and the woman nodded.
�Like clockwork. We�ve tried everything to get him to stop � got in all his friends, his flight-mates, his relatives. He doesn�t respond. He sleeps where he falls, when he gets too tired, and we have to have someone following him all the time, to get everything he could harm himself with out of the way. He�d try to kill himself otherwise.�
Martan continued into another room, still followed.
�I see. I don�t suppose we could try having him as a candidate in the next Hatching?�
�I consulted the Weyrleaders on that. They say no, since the records say that Brekke resented being placed before another clutch, and it wouldn�t work.�
�Tried a fire-lizard?�
�No. It�s about the only thing we haven�t tried.�
�Then do. Anything that we can possibly use to help��

That had been sixteen years ago.
Martan sighed, and reached out a hand to stroke Sarri�s small head, wincing as his shoulder loosened � he hadn�t moved for an hour.
He was like that these days � he could sit for any length of time, just looking out of the window into the sky. Even he didn�t know what he was thinking. People speculated that he was mad, still, that he had been ever since his dear Solarith had died. They thought he sat there and imagined once again being a-dragonback, that he only thought about his lifemate.
But he wasn�t mad. And he wasn�t thinking about anything, really. He just was.
The fire-lizard chirped, fluttering to his shoulder as he rose to his feet, and he smiled over at her. �C�mon, Sarri.� He muttered. They should hitch a lift to that Gather. He could persuade one rider to take him. But not a brown one.
Some things were still too painful.

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