Mid-afternoon, Xanadu time, the warmth of the sleepy summer's day changed without warning.
A matter of seconds, that's all that had passed, before the air resounded with brassy trumpets from confused, upset Xanadian dragons.
Kalsuoth was one of those. Lifting his head in his wallow, his sounding with a soft caw of confusion. In the kitchen, Mur’dah paused, his head tilting.
Shared with those dragons, pictures flashed in rapid succession with incoherent emotions upon minds: of blinding, howling wind-driven snow, of confusion, disorientation, an icy rockface RIGHT there — NO!
Mur’dah’s heart stopped, the dish he was holding clattering to the floor. Shattering with a sound he didn’t hear as he raced around the counter towards his lifemate, his mouth opening, a soundless cry.
The bone-shattering impact physically felt seven time zones away, sent some of the listening dragons staggering.
“NO!” came Mur’dah’s strangled cry, grabbing for his dragon’s neckridges, hauling himself up onto his neck. Kalsuoth surged forward, shouldering open the door. Wood splintered, left hanging as he stumbled into his clearing, into that day that was calm and bright.
Then blackness and cold beyond that of the High Reaches winter. Silence for a span of seconds, with the indistinct but unmistakable yearning for home, of reaching for…fainter…help.
Kalsuoth tried to reach back. He stretched, he grasped, he tried to /grab/ and /save/ and /pull/, but he was not able to do it as he limped further and kicked off into the sky, a flurry of dark wings and a roar of confusion and call to action.
Then another flash shared, emergence into a maelstrom of white, of falling towards remote, untamed peaks and tumbling out of control. Then the utter silence and black of Between once more…
The keening arose after that, the hopeless sort that tells the passing of one of their own Between. Seryth is no more!
Kalsuoth keened, and Mur’dah was blinded by his tears. “Mom,” he whispered, gripping his brown’s neckridges. “MOM! To Cold Stone. Now, Kalsuoth, now!” Just in case she survived. If she survived the fall…he had to go. He had to find out. He had to /go/.
Kalsuoth tried to go. He tried, but he was prevented. Prevented by a queen. His mind pushed, he struggled and roared while Mur’dah yelled in his frustration. “She could be alive!” he screamed, as Yumeth forced them to the ground and would not let them go. Would not let them go. Prevented from going to search for his mother. His /mother/. His family. He was held back. Controlled. Stopped. Denied. Forced.
Something inside Mur’dah broke then; a cold, enveloping fury, and he found his thoughts enveloped in dark wings and silence.