#neiths arrow

 The first winter storm of the season passed after two long and freezing days. After the skies had cleared, Nesryn, Sartaq, and the other riders spent an entire day removing snow that piled past Nesryn’s calves from the aerie ledges and ruk nests. Once the training platform and the last of the nests were cleared Nesryn’s body ached. She welcomed the ache as she saddled Salkhi. After three days indoors she and the ruk both needed to be in the sky.  

  Kadara impatiently waited nearby, already saddled and ready to leap with or without her rider. Nesryn swung herself onto Salkhi and buckled her legs as Sartaq stored a light lunch in the saddlebags and followed suit. Moments later they were in there air, soaring over the freshly snow capped mountains and across the rolling white plains that flowed below.

   Tomorrow, Sartaq had informed her, they would accompany Houlun in visiting the other aeries. After the first winter storm, he told her, it was custom for each clan to meet and exchange supplies with one another. This winter, the first since the war that claimed too many of their people and ruk, the visits would also provide an opportunity to see how the communities were coping with their loses. To offer condolences and support amongst all rukhin.

   Truthfully, it terrified Nesryn to face those who lost loved ones. Lost on behalf of her cause. She had come to these lands and asked these people to abandon their peace. Though she knew the war was inevitable, that it was for the survival of all life across the planet, she could not shake the guilt that gripped her since that first battle. The guilt she lived with since she heard that rider cry, saw those vicious, wyvern teeth clamped through his ruk’s neck.

   Nesryn had watched, completely useless, as the ruk and it’s rider plummeted down onto the battlefield below. Worse. All of it had been so much worse than she could ever had dreamed. Visiting the other aeries to offer her support would be her honor, never a burden. She had told Sartaq as much earlier that morning. He simply gave her a knowing smile, nodded and went to ready the ruks for their flight.

   Salkhi bobbed in the wind, jostling Nesryn enough to snap her focus back to the present. She patted the ruk’s neck and glanced to Sartaq. He inclined his head towards a frozen lake. The sun had already melted away a considerable amount of snow, which was ideal if they intended on landing their ruks. A few caves dotted the shoreline, which was promising for the ruk’s own chances of finding a fresh meal.    

    They landed, scouted the area for safety, and set up a blanket to eat on near the mountainside. Nesryn and Sartaq sat, eating leisurely, neither inclined to leave the open landscape any sooner than necessary.

   Kadara and Salkhi happily ripped into their own meals, Salkhi occasionally risking a taste of Kadara’s. Nesryn smiled, noting the way Kadara let him past her defenses a few times, then snapped her beak at him when the younger ruk dared another bite too soon.

   Sartaq chuckled beside her and Nesryn wished she could bottle that carefree sound. Salkhi was distracted by a bird taking flight from a nearby brush and Kadara seized the chance to steal a considerable portion of his meal.

   “When I was young,” Sartaq began after a few moments passed, “after the first winter storms passed Borte’s mother would bring us out to this lake.” A familiar, sad smile graced his lips as memories filtered behind his eyes. Nesryn waited for him to continue, all too familiar with those types of memories.

   “Borte and I would have hardly finished eating before we were running about,” a soft laugh. “We would compete with each other at anything we could find.”

   “Fighting like siblings from the beginning?” Nesryn asked, picturing the two racing around the shoreline, climbing the mountainside, terrifying their poor chaperone.

   “Worse,” Sartaq admitted. He began cleaning up their small picnic site, Nesryn stood to help bundle the blanket. “Our favorite contest,” he continued, “was testing which of us could walk out onto the frozen lake before breaking the surface.”

   Nesryn’s face must have revealed her horror because Sartaq nodded, a crooked grin mercifully replacing the somber one he wore moments ago.

   “Rukhin are born without fear,” he said with pride, “and any mistakes we made, or injuries we earned, were opportunities to learn.”

   “Did you learn any such lessons on this lake?” Nesryn tried to picture her sister’s children out on the ice and panic gripped her gut. The thought of a four year old taking their first flight even still astounded Nesryn, though the sensation had become as familiar as breathing.

   Sartaq thought for a minute, as if contemplating telling her or not. She fixed with a look that promised she’d ask Borte when they returned to the aerie if he refused.  

   “Only once,” he relented. “One winter, after four days stuck inside, the three of us flew out here for much needed exercise. Our ruk’s, as young and headless as we were, chased each other through the air above while Borte and I went through our usual challenges. Borte climbed the highest, I through my rock the furthest. She fired her arrow more accurately, I split it with a dagger,” he laughed.

   “We were tied, and walking the ice would determine the victor. Borte went first, because there was no arguing otherwise,” a fond smile. It sounded as though neither sibling had changed since their childhoods. “Determined to win, and stubborn as a Ruk, Borte ventured out further than either of us had ever dared,” he paused. “Satisfied I would never make it as far, my already greater height a disadvantage in that type of task, she dropped her marker and start back to shore.”

    “Marker?” Nesryn asked, thankful the children did not test the ice to support both of their weight together.

    A nod, “We mostly used fruit cores or pits. If we had none, we would find small rocks to use instead.”

   Nesryn caught herself wringing her hands. A terrible habit she picked up only recently. Having her family in Antica was a blessing from the gods, but also a curse. The more time she spent with her aunt and sister, the more she picked up their mannerisms. And the more she began to fuss over the children. And everything.  

   Sartaq had teased her relentlessly. Especially the night she caught herself pacing-pacing-their bedroom floor when Ej and Borte visited Yeran and his father to discuss wedding details. Borte would be insulted, you know, Sartaq had said. He was right. Nesryn begged him not to tell Borte, and he simply raised a rather suggestive eyebrow.

   “Did you make it further?” Nesryn asked, though she already disliked the direction of this story.

   “No,” he stated flatly. “I took five steps out onto that ice,” he paused and Nesryn could feel each heartbeat that passed. “The ice gave out completely and I fell like a log into the black, freezing water below.”

   Nesryn couldn’t help her sharp intake of breath. Obviously he had survived. Yet-

   “Borte hauled me from the lake faster than I had registered I was even submerged,” Sartaq shook his head in awe and Nesryn loosed her breath. “She stood me up, shook my shoulders once, and we walked back to where my aunt waited with our ruk’s.”

   “Did she say anything?” she ventured.

   “No,” Sartaq laughed, “she apologized to Kadara for the state of her rider, handed me a change of clothes I did not know she packed, mounted her own ruk, and took off into the sky without so much as a word.” The smile on his face didn’t reach his eyes, but it was not pain that she read in them. Respect. That was respect on his face for the woman that left a child to freeze by that lake. Freeze, or learn to take care of himself and fly home.

   “Borte and I raced back to the aerie,” he added before stuffing the last of their things into Kadara’s saddlebag.

   “Saving your life wasn’t enough to claim victory?” Nesryn asked as she buckled her legs into Salkhi’s saddle. She refused the let her unease at the rukhin’s blatant disregard for safety show. Sartaq grew into the man she loved because of his rukhin family.

   “We agreed that it would have been a cheap win,” he shrugged. He readied to take off, catching Nesryn’s gaze, the challenge clear on his face. Nesryn braced herself. With a wink he added, “Neither of us have ever been satisfied with settling.”

  Two sharp whistles later Kadara was in the air, and Salkhi had given chase. Nesryn and Sartaq raced across the open fields below, changing lead at each bend and pass, until their competition became more like a dance. The ruk’s played along with their riders, each if them savouring the wind, the sights, the freedom. When the aerie at last came in sight, and even after they had landed and unsaddled their ruk, Nesryn and Sartaq were laughing freely.