@sgaeyl said, ❝ there's no shame in fear, my father told me, what matters is how we face it. ❞
❝ your father was a wise man. ❞
though there were a number of disparities between the riders of navarre and the fliers of poromiel, chief among those differences being the size and strength of their respective mounts, the shared bond and the power that flowed through it from dragon or gryphon to their riders had been enough of a similarity that all else could be worked through, had been worked through to achieve an agreement by their predecessors that the children of the first rebels now pursued ─ even as the needle dug through the splintered flesh of his arm, metal mending skin together with thread and a flare of power that she channeled through her gryphon, dawn, the work continued around them as weapons and intelligences were exchanged alongside bowls of broth heated over the flame to warm their guests from the war college.
❝ i remember him well. ❞ allyria was but four or five years older than him and she had been of age to sit amongst the fliers in the war tent when the council had met with the first rebels ( separatists, navarre had later called them, to hide the truth from the rest of their people ). she had remembered fen riorson at the head of the table, but remembered more clearly the boy he had brought along, solemn at such a young age. ❝ there is no shame in fear ... or what you had to do back then to ensure the survival of your kin. ❞ to call them friends seemed to diminish the bond of what all the separatist children had gone through, together ─ blood made them family and they had waded through enough of death to be considered that. ❝ though you needn't be so desperate to continue to throw yourself in harm's way to save one of them ... you are fortunate that this is merely a superficial injury. ❞ as though to emphasize her words, allyria pulled back the numbness that she had been pushing into his flesh to allow him to feel the itch of the stitches and the bite of the needle, pulling thread through skin.
❝ we need you still, riorson. ❞