Softer Than a Cannon Blast

Writers: Halyonix
Date Posted: 27th May 2026

Characters: E'rian
Description: E'rian has a nightmare about his mother and Inarayth tries to fix it
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 2, day 26 of Turn 13
Notes: The start of the "What You Want" series

"Mom! Mom, no!"

It didn't matter. It never mattered. E'rian could scream until his throat refused, until his lungs were empty of breath, and it still never changed what happened. He still had to watch her walk out of the shelter of their little family weyr, that loving smile on her face, and straight into the deadly Threadfall as though she was taking a walk through a gentle summer rain.

That wasn't how it had happened in reality but that's how E'rian's brain drew it up in the nightmare. He thought that maybe he would step having it, especially now that he had his own dragon, but tonight, he wasn't lucky. He woke up, panting, grimacing, tearing at his hair as if he he could pluck the sharding image from his worry-riddled brain. He couldn't.

}: There! There! What was that? :{ a voice interrupted him sharply.

Fuck. Inarayth was awake.

Practically pouncing him in his bunk, she was unrelenting. }: That image! That woman! Who was that? You're afraid! Who was that?! Tell me, E'rian! :{ That woman was the key to what he was hiding! Inarayth could feel it! She just had to hook her claws into it and rip it out. All he had to do was tell her!

But her rider shifted out from underneath her. Rolled out of bed. Evading again. "Leave it alone, Inarayth," he grumbled as he went to find some water. A walk to clear his head. A distraction. Anything to not talk about it with Inarayth at two in the sharding morning.

}: No! :{ Inarayth said with a bugle. E'rian immediately clapped both hands over her muzzle, silencing her in one way. She squirmed as she said, }: No! You will tell me! You will tell me why you are so afraid of that woman. :{

It probably looked pretty comical, him standing there with his hands holding her mouth shut as she wiggled, with a look of angry concentration on his face. But there was nothing comical in his tone. **Leave it, Inarayth. Quit poking at it, okay?**

}: No! :{ the stubborn dragon repeated. }: I will find her and I will fight her! She will not make you afraid! She will not make you hide things from me again! :{

Anger flared through him with such intensity that Inarayth's faceted eyes widened and she stilled briefly. How dare his own dragon want to hurt his mother! Why couldn't she just leave the damn thing alone?! Why did she always have to start fights when there didn't need to _be_ a fight?! Why did it have to be this damn dragon that had picked him and not one that _understood_ where he was coming from?

Inarayth whined. Squirmed a little bit now she was trying to get away. }: E'rian... :{ Love flowed from her, tinged with apology.

He immediately deflated and let her go. She shook her head like a canine would to rid itself of an unpleasant touch. "Sorry," he muttered, though he didn't feel sorry. "It's just....you just...shells, Inarayth, just let it go for now. We need to get some sleep. We have class in the morning, remember?"

Inarayth's wings drooped. She didn't remember. She never did. She opened her mind, her jaws to say something, to press, to pry -- and then stopped. Looked away. }: I'm just trying to help, :{ she mewled. Why wouldn't he _tell_ her??

"Well, you aren't," he told her sharply. Shells, she even flinched at the tone. Tugging at his hair again, he went back over to her and threw his arms around her sage green body in an attempt at an apology. Just anything to move them on from this. "Look, I'll...another day. I'll tell you about it another day, okay?"

It was lie. He even tried to hide it from her when he said it. He wasn't sure if he succeeded.

She burrowed her head into his middle. }: Okay, :{ she acquiesced. For then. Inwardly, her little brain did everything it could to record what she had seen. She was going to find out what was scaring her rider so much and fix it. When she woke up tomorrow, she would fix it.

But when she woke up the next day, yawning and bleary-eyed, her stomach rumbled with emptiness, her mind was focused on food, and then on a bath, and then on a nap, and before she knew it, what little Inarayth remembered from the nightmare had been erased, and all she was left with was that underlying feeling that her rider was afraid of something and she could not remember _what_.

Last updated on the June 4th 2026

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Softer Than a Cannon Blast