#chapter 53

happy saturday Here's this now. google drive link here--thanks specifically to @pinkdoozyxoxo for providing us all with the raws we used to do this :) the rest of the pages are below the cut

chat, can we tell that I’m tired, projecting my exhaustion, and also haven’t drawn in a while?

Because "No rider has ever survived the loss of their dragon. I can’t imagine wanting to." & also "A dragon without its rider is a tragedy"… and Tairn knows; he is the only living being to come close to understanding what Violet is going through… because he lost his rider and that loss nearly killed him.

— It’s why he told her she must survive after her mother died. "You are alive. You will live today. You will wake tomorrow."

— It’s why he reminds her over and over; she is his last rider, this is their life, he won’t lose her to it, he will not live with that. "I chose you not as my next, but as my last, and should you fall, then I will follow."

— It’s why he forces her to breathe. "You will breathe." … He’s the only one that can… Tairn knows. Tairn exists. Tairn makes sure she is not alone, and you hear it in the following quotes… almost like a debate to her inner monologue… actually quite literally that; he is cancelling it out.

Violet is losing her vision: "The sky darkens, and the ground trembles. I look up into the black void, and my vision narrows in an ever-shrinking circle." — Violet sees him instead. "Not the sky. A wing." — Piercing through to her. "Stern, demanding golden eyes appear." — Demanding to be seen.

Violet cannot breathe without her: "It’s gone. A breath later, so is she. A roar vibrates my very bones, and my ears ring as the edges of my vision darken. My heart stutters, and my lungs cease their struggle. There's no air and no reason to seek it. I was infinite yet moored, and now I'm hollow and adrift in waters too vast to comprehend." Tairn uses his power, demands, controls her to breathe and live so this does not kill her: "You will breathe!" His deep, gravelly voice fills my head, and unyielding strength barrels down the pathway that connects us."

Violet is nothing: "I’m nothing." Tairn exists, so she exists, so she cannot be nothing: "He exists, therefore I must, because we are bound. Never alone. Always connected."

Violet says: "She left us. She left us. She left us. It's all I can think." — Tairn interjects, reminds, demands her to stay and remember that & that not everyone left: "We remain," Tairn orders, as if I have a choice not to."

"Andarna is gone. But I’m never alone." — he never lets her be alone. Not for one moment… It’s why it changes from “left” from that abandonment, and a vague “she” summary, to “Andarna” and “gone”, it now sounds less like everyone and a summary of every loss (even if this one hurts more than any).

"Tairn leaves our bond wide open, giving me unfettered access to him in a way l've never had. He's always been with me, but now I'm with him, too. I hear his side of the conversation when he tells the elders about Andarna's departure. I hear him bickering with Sgaeyl over what he calls her excessive hovering, and I'm privy to the lecture he gives Xaden about making sure I eat." — he lets her in like no one else or any dragon rule (I imagine at least) would allow. Even letting her see him coddling, scolding, caring, protecting; making sure she eats. Being whatever she needs to keep breathing… and she is breathing.