A walk to the trees {Jarshan}

[Ise]

D’ero made his way to the line of trees outside the Weyr. He walked slowly, looking around often. He had heard about the little girl that had been attacked, he didn’t want to be the next person to get mauled. Especially since he had left his brown Hourth back in the barracks napping.

The young man just wanted a chance to get outside for a while. Walk around and breath some fresh air. It felt good to just be outside of the Weyr. While things were starting to get better at the Weyr, it still felt like a prison at times to D’ero. The fact that he could now wander outside of the Weyr and didn’t feel like someone was following him was nice.

He kept his eyes open as he walked, in no real rush as he made his way to the tree line. D’ero was slightly nervous about the felines in the area but not too worried about it. From the gossip that had been going through the Weyr after the attack on the little girl, it was rare for the large creatures to come this close to people. He was also bigger and stronger then a little girl and kept a knife on his belt. Of course he had a healthy respect for the animals as well and knew that if it got the jump on him he’d probably be dead before he realized it. He paused for a moment as he pictures this gruesome and un-heroic end to his life and mostly wondered if anyone would ever tell his parents what had happened to him. He started walking again, the morbid thought still bouncing around in his head though he didn’t let it bother him. Everyone died sooner or later. At least if a feline ate him he’d be useful to something in his death.

[Marnark]

Anything that moved had her attention. Things that didn't move had her attention, but to a lesser degree. But that was only natural. Jarshan was wired that way. Perched on a limb half way up the tree, she was resting only on her toes, crouching as she balanced, forearms resting on thighs as she observed the world.

When in the jungle, she was most comfortable in the trees themselves. Really, out in the jungle, the forest floor was a death trap. Granted, this was not out in the jungle. Not really. But it was still habit, and she was happiest off the ground. Various types of small wherry flittered here and there in the foliage, more or less ignoring the Shield woman. A crawler trundled down the branch, passing between her toes unmolested.

What had her attention was everything else. Soon narrowed down to one stout looking youth walking more or less in her direction. Now this was unusual ... and thus garnered more of her attention. He was a fairly good-looking lad, well built. Useful looking lad. Though some of the more pretentious people might call him a piece of meat, Jarshan was of a different mind. She knew straight away that a build like that was not easy to get - or maintain. This lad, he had a craft. And he was good enough at it that he did it continuously. It wasn't dragonriding either. Or hadn't been. Coming from the Weyr, he might be one now. But in any event, dragonriding made for a more lean, sinewy type of person.

She watched in still silence as he walked all the way to the treeline, and then stopped. Now that was also quite odd. He wasn't going anywhere? No where at all? Just to the trees? Jarshan leaned over just a bit to get a better look, her well-oiled leather outfit not making a single sound and masking her presence even from the animals. He seemed alert enough, for a normal person. But that still wasn't enough. He clearly didn't know she was there ... and felines were a whole sharding lot sneakier than she was. A whole lot hungrier too.

Her fingers went to the bark under her feet, and she pried a chunk up with her finger tips. It came free easily from the rough lines that grew there, leaving a slightly paler place in its wake as it was removed. Fingering it lightly, she placed her other hand down on the branch to take her weight as she shifted her balance. A small smirk appeared on her previously expressionless face. Pulling her hand back, she threw the bark at him.

It flew fast and true, with enough energy to sting when it hit, bouncing off his shoulder.

"You're dead." She informed him, before whirling and leaping from her branch to a new one, left hand snapping out to catch another branch and redirect her momentum to swing her around the main trunk and out of sight. There she stopped, and held still, waiting to see what he did next, how he reacted. Had he seen her at all? She would be impressed if he had.

Teach those silly Weyr people to just blithely wander around as if they were immune to the real world because they happened to have a mental link to an over sized carnivorous flying lizard! Yeah ... Jarshan wasn't very enamored with dragonriders...

[Ise]

D’ero felt the piece of bark smack him in the shoulder, looking at it as he tried to figure out what had just hit him before he heard the voice coming from the trees. His head tilted to the side a little, eyes looking at the trees. It was hard to tell if any of the movement he saw was from a person or the wind.

Well at least he knew that there was a female member of the Dragon Shield around here some where. The voice had sounded too old to be some weyrbrat, and he had a feeling that the guards would have stopped one of them from coming outside. And he didn’t think that any dragon rider would be able to move through the trees so well, not after years of being on a dragon. The older riders could move gracefully and quietly, but quiet and silent were two different things. He remembered the eerie silence that the Dragon Shield members had moved with when the Expedition had been caught.

He looked one more time towards the trees, not expecting to see anything that would give away the woman’s position. Instead, he was looking for her fire lizard. A gold or a bronze would stick out in the green foliage a little more then a brown. But he saw nothing but the movement of leaves.

“I had just given thought to the idea of being eaten alive out here right before you threw that at me. There are worse ways of dying. Of course I can think of at least twenty things I’d rather do then be mauled to death… If I venture closer would you be kind enough to save my stupid self before anything does too much damage to me?”
D’ero could hold his own against most people in a fight. Not because he was any good at fighting, but he was bigger and stronger then most people. The Dragon Shield were actually fighters, they would have no problem beating him down and knowing that one of them was near by made him feel better. If he was attacked he was sure he would probably get mauled a bit before the woman helped him but he didn’t think she would just let him die. At least he hoped not. Still, he waited to have her permission before going any closer, or even moving. He was breathing and his eyes roamed the area but otherwise he stood still, no fidgets or any other useless movements were made by him.

[Marnark]

Jarshan rolled her eyes. He just stood there like a bloke. Maybe piece of meat was an apt description in this case? She grabbed the trunk behind her and used that touch as a balancing point as she moved from her branch to the left again, back around the trunk by ninety degrees. As soon as her feet hit the branch, she dropped, whirling around the branch like a crazy yo-yo.

Feet locked in place, one over one under, she came to a stop upside down on the branch, arms crossed across her chest, hair still completely contained by the bun it was twisted into on the back of her head. None of the many blades sheathed along her lines even budged from the acrobatic stunt, clearly snugly held in their sheathes by friction. "And why would I do such a thing as that?" Jarshan asked, deliberately being contrary.

He looked even weirder when he was viewed upside down.

"Truth be told, you'd probably be incapable of moving fast enough to avoid even a slow blow." Jarshan remarked. Strength was notable, yes. But what good was it if you couldn't catch your opponent to land anything? Of course, she knew the ins and outs of the whole concept from both sides, but hey. Playing along wasn't nearly as much fun as being contrary and provoking reactions. Not that he'd yet to have any reaction that was interesting. Duuuuuuuuuuuh was just ... so boring.

"I do have to ask, if it occurred to you that you would probably get mauled or eaten by coming out here, especially by yourself ... why did you? Have a death wish today, do you?" She asked, blatantly blunt.

[Ise]

“I assume you would help me because you’re bored and have nothing better to do. That might just be me though, I’ve always been a hands on person, watching something just gets boring after awhile.”
He glanced over to where he thought he had seen movement in the trees, more movement then just the breeze. He couldn’t be sure it had been her though and after a moment continued his walk towards the trees.
“I’m also pretty sure that protecting the people of the Weyr is part of your duty and I know that the members of the Dragon Shield take their duty seriously.”

He came to the tree line and bent down to pick up a piece of dead wood that littered the ground here. He stood up against as she spoke to him about being too slow, thinking about it for a moment before nodding.
“I’m a little faster then I look, but no, speed is not my thing. Fast movements startle animals which is what I try to avoid doing. I know how to get out of the way of a kicking runner or a charging herdbeast. But I’m not use to having to actually fight people.”

D’ero picked up another piece of wood, running his finger over it, frowning a little bit. He looked over to where he thought he could hear the woman talking from.
“I was tried to being stuck in the Weyr. I’m not use to being inside so often. I wanted a chance to actually get some fresh air without there being any walls around me. And yes I know there’s a chance that I could get mauled or worse out here but what’s the point of living if you don’t take a few risks.”

[Marnark]

Jarshan watched this hunk wander around and pick at sticks as he talked, somewhat disappointed. Were non-shield really so blithe? Even hanging out there in open space like that, he still didn't see her. Woof. She listened to him talk for a moment, before letting go of the branch that she was hanging from. Twisting mid-air, she landed on her feet again with a thump that should have been louder given her mass. But that was simply training. Cocking one hip, she just eyed him.

Bigger than she'd thought ... taller anyway. Now she had to look up at him rather than down. "You do know what they say about assume, right? Makes and a-s-s out of u-and-me." She answered.

"You're not local are you? You're one of them Northerner lot." That would explain a lot about his inability to see her in the tree. Northerners. Pft. Useless lot, the whole bunch of em. She hadn't been bored in the least. She'd been practicing and relaxing at the same time. Not that he'd understand that.

"You had better not be picking fights with people." Jarshan added. "There are plenty of things that need aggression without going and looking for it. Same goes for taking unnecessary risks. It's a good way to live a short life. Or get crippled for life. Then what would you do, hm?" Stupidity was stupidity no matter which way you sliced it. There was a difference between being daring and stupid. "I do take my duty seriously, but I am also a firm believer in natural selection. You do something stupid, you are going to pay the price for it. You people get coddled too much already without me running along behind you hanging onto your leash and wiping your nose."

[Ise]

D’ero glanced over as she dropped from the tree before he picked up another piece of wood, looked it over a bit before tossing it off to the side.
“I’m from the North. And I don’t pick fights with people. I’ll stand up for someone weaker then me if they’re getting picked up but I’m not going to start a fight just to prove something.”
He stood up and looked down at Jarshan. A slight frown rested on his lips but other all he didn’t look bothered or upset by what she was saying. Of course she was thinking that all Northerners were useless, and if she had spent any time around some of the little lordlings she would probably have been proven right.

“If I was crippled I would deal with it. There wouldn’t be any point in whining about it. And I came out here knowing that there was a chance I could be attacked by something. It’s a risk I was willing to take. I also take responsibility for my own actions. If I do something stupid I’m not going to expect someone else to help me clean up the mess.”

He picked up another hunk of wood, turning it over in his hands a bit as he looked it over before deciding to keep it.
“If you have other things you need to take care of you don’t have to stay here. I don’t have a leash for you to be holding and I can wipe my own nose just fine. I can name some other people for you to babysit if that’s what you want.”

[Marnark]

Ah hah. So he was Northern. Just like she suspected. She hadn't looked to closely at that lot, when she'd helped escort them in. But his mannerisms were too alien to be local. His wishy washy answers were befuddling at best, though. First he wanted protected should something attack him, then he said he didn't. Which was it? Silly boy. Jarshan lifted her chin slightly, almost seeming to stare him down in eerie silence. Even if she was shorter than he was. She clearly had no fear of his large stature.

"You. Are a contradiction in terms." She decided, finally. "You have no idea who you are, do you?" And by who, she meant that deeper meaning that most people could not answer. Not what his name was, but fundamentally the things that made him who he was. "Do you have nothing to live for? Nothing to strive toward? Surely you have some ability to center yourself, for all you seem to lack it."

Or maybe he was just too young for all that. Too young to understand anything. Much less himself. Jarshan's expression held, though, betraying nothing but the flat, serious front that was normal when she was in Shield mode.

Even if she was mildly curious what it was he was intending to do with that chunk of wood. Northerners. Unpredictable sometimes, if they were still human at their core. She was already anticipating anything he could do with that wood. Everything from randomly and bizarrely gnawing on it, to taking a swag at swinging it at her. Strange, strange fellow he was.

[Ise]

D’ero stopped and looked at Jarshan, blinking a few times at the women before looking around him.
“Do I know myself in the way you’re talking about? Probably not. At least not well enough. As for the things I live for, and work towards? Well I’m stuck in the South basically being held hostage. I can’t return to my family and help make sure that my parents are doing alright, or that my younger brother isn’t getting into trouble, or making sure that boys stay away from my sister. If you have a beastcrafting hall here, I doubt they would be that interested in me. Dragons are the specialty here, not runners. Back home I was working on breeding runners, trying to get a new cross that would be stronger and make better work animals. I don’t think anyone here is going to let me near a runner much less let me try to breed something new.”

His voice rose slightly, not upset or anything so personal with Jarshan, just frustrated with everything. Before joining the Expedition he had known what he was going to do with himself. Just about everything had been planned out. But now he had none of that. He didn’t know what was going to happen to them next week much less in a turn or two.
“The only thing I have right now is a dragon. Which only makes this more complicated. If I hadn’t Impressed maybe they would have sent me back home. Instead I get to continue to be a hostage, just a slightly more willing one. Though none of us will make very good hostages. You got stuck with a bunch of children that ultimately no one will care about. The little lordlings won’t be missed by their parents, they’re the misfit children. None of the crafters were of any skill either, we’re all just average people that won’t be missed.”

D’ero took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He felt slightly guilty now for being such a whiner but it did feel good to at least vent about it once. Sure Jarshan probably didn’t care which only made it better. The other Northerners would take offence at being called worthless and get upset about it and D’ero wasn’t about to start whining to his dragon, he loved Horuth and knew that even if he hadn’t Impressed he would still be stuck here.

He looked back to Jarshan, giving her a slight nod of apology.
“Sorry about getting so whiney and acting like a baby. My frustration with things is another reason I wanted to get out of the Weyr for a little while. My problems are small and meaningless compared to most things and getting outside and seeing the bigger picture reminds me of that.”

[Marnark]

Jarshan eyed him in return for a moment, but held her silence as he started his rant, running through his laundry list of perceived problems. Once he rambled to a stop, she merely shrugged. "I don't see what your problem is." She answered, honestly. "I mean ... obviously, you have a dragon. Why they allowed you to get one is beyond me if they wanted to keep you captive. Dragons fly." She flapped her hands out to either side for a moment in mockery of something flying.

"Once your dragon gets old enough ... just fly home. They have this interesting ability called between. You'd be back in a flash. So, you got what you came for. You came, you found dragons, you got dragons, and now you can just ... fly away." She shrugged, clearly having no compunctions with pointing out the errors of the dragonriders. She really didn't have any love lost for them either.

Crossing her arms across her chest, she shrugged again, shifting her weight to the other hip. "Viola, all your problems gone. But, if I were you, I wouldn't tell anyone. If they caught wind of that, they might have that Gold order your dragons grounded and never let them fly. But I don't expect that will happen. I mean ... why give you lot dragons only to not try to use them?"

This whole concept was beyond fuzzy to her. None of it made any sense at all from the get go. But dragonriders would be dragonriders. It wasn't any of her business. Her business was the Shield. That, she knew well, that she did well. It was her calling, as it were. Probably be a Shield until the day she died ... and her life expectancy wasn't that much better than a dragonrider that flew thread, either. But she was okay with that.

[Ise]

D’ero listened to Jarshan. Of course he had thought of trying to fly back home. But he didn’t think Hourth would be able to make that long of a trip without repeated breaks. And without a map of any sort, just going North wouldn’t be the smartest idea. He could easily get stuck out in the ocean with no where to land or any food or water.

He shook his head a little as he went over the reasons why he couldn’t just fly home before giving her a confused look as she spoke of Between.
“Go between what? I don’t see how getting in between something will help me go home.”
He had seen the dragons and fire lizards pop between places but no name had ever been given to that skill, at least none that he had heard yet. He had never seen either creature go very far either.

He still had his doubts about being able to do either. If Jarshan could come up with that plan then he assumed the Weyrleaders had as well, neither of them seem that dumb. Of course he still had to wait close to two turns before it would even be safe to try and ride Hourth.
“I don’t know why they gave us dragons, or even gave us the chance to stand. I figured we were going to be tossed into a brig and left to rot after you had gotten any useful information out of us. None of this makes sense to me, which only puts me more on edge. I keep expecting someone to try and murder me in my sleep or something…”

[Marnark]

Jarshan gave him a really strange look, then. He didn't know what between was? "Between between. You know, that trick that flitters and dragons do?" She snapped the fingers on one hand and then on the other. "Disappear reappear? Between." Really, how could someone not know what between was? Even she, someone who was not a dragon rider, had been between. "Go between here and there. From here, to your home. Not hard." She said. "And they really can't stop you. Not without the Queen taking a notion and leaning on the minds of all the young dragons to make sure they don't. And that's exhausting for her. She has to sleep sometimes."

"But I also agree with you on there. I have no idea what it is they think they're doing. But then Dragonriders are always like that." She shrugged. "But really? What do you know that we could really want to know? We're happy where we are. This is our home. Just about the only thing they could have done that would have made sense is to just put you all down. Make sure word didn't go back to your daddies about where we are. But they didn't. Trust me ... you wouldn't rot in a room. It takes too much effort to keep you alive while you sit there and do nothing. But - I reckon what they were thinking was short term, immediate problem fixing." Jarshan shrugged.

"You see, the Queen doesn't rise very often. Once every seven turns or so, it seems like. Even then, she usually lays a small clutch. Usually, it's easy to find enough candidates of an appropriate bonding age to stand for the clutch. But this time, she laid a whopper of a clutch. They couldn't scratch up that many youths to stand, and they sure as shards didn't want to lose any of those dragons in those eggs." Jarshan explained. "Then, ta da, here you come marching your young little ignorant asses in here, and you're their temporary fix. The dragons are alive, instead of between. They used you as a stop gap. I imagine what they're planning now is to work on brainwashing or converting you in the time it takes your dragon to grow up." She shrugged a bit and then crossed her arms. "I could be wrong of course. They don't talk to me."

[Ise]

D’ero just shook his head a bit as Jarshan continued to try and explain Between without ever really saying what it was. It finally clicked for him when she snapped her fingers.
“Oh their popping in and out of places? You call that Between? No offence but that’s kind of a stupid name for it. It doesn’t explain anything about the skill. It’d be like calling galloping ‘On Top’ because that’s where they are compared to the ground…”
He still didn’t understand how the ability worked and had a feeling that he wouldn’t just be able to ask the someone how it was done and return home. They were bound to say it was dangerous and that such young dragons couldn’t do it.

He gave a little snort though at the thought of the Queen dragon stopping them.
“The new queen is one of us though. If she tells our dragons to go wouldn’t they still be able to go? I mean, wouldn’t the dragons be more willing to follow the orders of the gold they know rather then any random gold? Or else you could get golds from other Weyr’s telling dragons to do something that would hurt their own Weyr.”
He didn’t think that Jarshan would be able to answer such a question but it did make him think a bit.

It was nice to know though that even someone at the Weyr was just as confused as to why the Expedition was still there as he was. He couldn’t really answer the question of what information they might have that the South would want, he sure didn’t have anything. Unless they were having problems breeding runners or herdbeast he was pretty useless to them. At least they wouldn’t have to wait long if they outlived their usefulness, there was something almost… comforting about that thought. D’ero didn’t want to wait around, dwelling on his death, something quick would be much nicer in his mind.

“I don’t see what’s so much better about giving us dragons that will just leave the Weyr versus letting dragons die. Either way the Weyr is going to lose a number of dragons when we get the chance to leave. And while some people might be brainwashed into staying here, I think there will be enough to go back to the North. Of course I guess we just have to make sure Essa stays on our side.”
He frowned slightly. Even if they did go back to the North with a queen, both bronze dragons had Impressed to people who had grown up in the Weyr. D’ero didn’t think either of those two would be willing to leave the South and join their cause. He thought he remembered hearing something about browns being able to fly a gold but it didn’t sound like that was common or even a wanted thing. Something about a weak clutch. He didn’t understand the difference really, other then the fact that a bronze was a shiney dragon while a brown was a much more humble color. And of course the size. Both of dragons and of egos of the riders.

“This is all stupid. It also seems stupid that your suppose to protect the Weyr but they don’t tell you anything that’s going on. Are all riders that stuck up about what they’re doing? Or do they just not like telling people anything. I mean do you even have orders not to just kill me for being out here?”
He frowned and pressed his lips together after asking that question, half wishing he could take it back. If she didn’t have orders to not kill him or anyone else from the North, then just irritating her could be enough to get himself stabbed by one of her many blades.

[Marnark]

Jarshan shrugged. "It's always been called between. I imagine it's because they're traveling between places. And it's between realities. After all, there is nothing in between." She was silent a moment, before shrugging again. "I doubt anyone really thinks about it. It's kind of like calling that annoying little bug a fly. Of course it flies. So does a lot of other things. Doesn't make it make any more or less sense, now does it?"

"Queens are powerful sorts. They can by a word control the dragons around them. No dragon ever hatched would disobey a Gold." She really didn't know why, but that was beside the point. "They might grouch about it, quietly, but they won't disobey. And naturally, the dragons of any given Weyr are going to follow the word of their Senior Queen over the word of any other Gold. That does not mean that they won't follow another Gold. A Junior Gold, or even theoretically a Gold from another Weyr ... if she says blah, they do blah, unless there is a contrary order from their own Senior Queen. This is my understanding of it anyway. It is not often that a Gold leans that kind of will over her dragons, but it has been known to be done."

"I already said the whole affair didn't make any sense. My only guess is the possibility of thought of Pern in general, rather than North versus South. Dragons are going to do what Dragons do, regardless of where they are. If thread falls, dragons will fly it. No matter where they are. The more dragons there are, the better of course. To a certain balance of point, naturally." Having the skies dark with dragons and no air left was a bit over kill, even for Thread. "I do have to say that you have to watch yourself. Things make sense, you agree with things. One thing leads to another, and you don't even realize it." She snapped her fingers again. "You're brainwashed." It really was alarmingly that simple. It took a pretty clever person to be able to alter the minds of other people though, with such subtlety. Jarshan personally didn't think that D'seus had that subtlety, but she wouldn't put it past the Weyrwoman.

"I do protect the Weyr, kid. I do. This is what I do for a living. I don't have to know the political currents as they specifically ebb and flow to defend the Weyr from predators or raiders. There is no war, and even if there was, I'm the wrong person for the job. I can't fight a war, I'm only one person. So no, I really don't tend to know what goes on in there, or what they're planning. It just is, and I still keep felines and bandits at bay." Jarshan shrugged slightly. "Such is as such as it is." She trailed off for a moment, giving him the oddest of looks after his question, though. "Kid, if I had orders to kill you, you'd be dead before you even knew I was anywhere near you. I am pretty sure they don't care how far you can walk in any given direction." She pointed at the Weyr. "Your dragon is back there, and you are mentally linked. You won't be going far. If you did somehow manage to make it far enough to start jeopardizing your bond, you would be in major pain for the distance." Maybe he didn't know that, but oh well. "Besides, I rarely give a shit what any of the 'Riders think." no, there was no love lost between her and the Riders of Dragons... this was just a job, and she was very good at it. That was all there was to it.

[Ise]

D’ero still thought that Between was a stupid name for it. And he still looked some what blank as Jarshan spoke of it. How did you go between realities? How could there be more then one reality? And didn’t things just go in and out in an instant? If you were in a place for so short a time how did you know there was nothing there? He decided that he liked transportation on runners better, much easier to understand.
“I still don’t get this Between stuff. Maybe it’ll be easier to get once we go over that stuff in lessons. If we ever go over it in lessons.”

Up to a point he could at least understand Golds having say over all the dragons. The golds were just the mothers and most people would do what their mom’s asked. Though up to a point even that didn’t make so much sense.
“What if a dragon comes from another Weyr? How do they know which dragon they have to listen to? It all seems so…”
He frowned again as he thought about it. He wanted to say it sounded so stupid but then he thought of it in another way. It didn’t seem like something that animals would do, it sounded more like the way people behaved. Maybe that was what bothered him, he wanted to think of dragons more like animals the like people. He liked animals better then people, people lied and manipulated while animals didn’t.
“It’s too human like. Only with no will of your own. At least you can tell a lord to piss off, I doubt dragons could do that to a queen.”

D’ero frowned a little and glanced at the Weyr, he didn’t think there were enough dragons there to fight all the Thread. Before the North had given the dragon riders the boot, there had been what, five, six different Weyrs? More then the two there currently were. He didn’t think it would be possible for less then a hundred dragons to protect everyone on Pern from Threadfall. He did give a nod to Jarshan about watching himself. He had taken the idea of standing and having the chance to Impress too lightly, he had never thought that it would actually happen. But now he was watching out for things more. He went to the lessons because it was important to know how to take care of his dragon.
“It’ll be hard to brainwash most of the Expedition members into giving up their life in the North. Much easier to keep offering them little things to help keep them here. We didn’t take the idea of Impressing seriously enough, of course most of us didn’t think that dragons would actually still be alive. I plan on thinking things through a little bit better now. Of course they’ve got close to two turns to find new ways to try and get us to stay here. Enough time to probably work on most of the crafters and try to turn some of the little lordlings against their families. Thankfully some of them are too stupidity loyal for brainwashing to work on them.”

Well it was good to know that if he ever pissed this woman off enough he’d be dead before he could even realize it. It did make him slightly interested to see her in action, see if she could actually back up her words or not. He was sure she could, the Shield was suppose to be the best of the best.
“My name is D’ero, not kid. And no, I wouldn’t be able to leave Hourth here, the pain would be the least of it. But has anyone actually broken their bond with a dragon before by going too far away from it?”