wraith-deer

[whichwoods]

Going crazy manifesting an update for like the stars that shine! Is there anything you can tell us about the next update?

i'm manifesting an update too 😭 here's a snippet of chap 3:

Luke swipes at his eyes as he walks up the winding, rocky path toward MAC’s dragonpit. He tries to take steadying breaths, but the sulfuric air does little to calm his nerves. 

He grimaces, pausing to spit some wretched combination of saliva and bile onto the ground. Luke has been feeling ill all week, some early-morning nausea he allowed himself to think was just related to nerves haunting him for the past week or so. Maybe the thought of returning to school was stressful, he’d foolishly thought, though that didn’t feel right even at the time. 

“Luke!” a familiar voice calls from ahead on the path. “Morning!”

He quickly rights his posture,  discreetly wiping his mouth with his sleeve. Nettles Waters is the first person Luke is seeing since returning to Dragonstone, and he doesn’t exactly want her to catch him puking. Nettles is a nice girl and probably one of his favorite classmates, but still, people talk on this campus. “Hey,” he croaks, quickly clearing his throat. 

“You off to see Arrax?” she asks with a smile, looking perfect even for just coming back from riding Sheepstealer in the wee hours in the morning, already on her way back down the hill. Luke barely managed to throw on riding pants and a sweatshirt. 

“Yep.” He keeps walking as he speaks to her, looking over his shoulder as he passes her. “Got to go give him lots of love.” 

“You alright?” she asks after him, after catching a sniffle. Luke quickens his pace. 

“Just fine! Probably caught something in King’s Landing, that cesspit. Wouldn’t want you to catch it. See you!”

He thinks he distantly hears her say goodbye, but he’s too far away to properly make it out by the time she says it. Luke makes the rest of his way up the path as quick as he can, with a burst of power he didn’t think himself capable of. It’s been an awful morning; he wants to see his dragon. 

MAC’s dragonpit is carved into the side of a cliff overhanging the rest of the campus. The flat that the mouth rests on is vast and rocky, intercut with grassy patches of tough, mountain plants here and there. When Luke reaches it, he sees that a few dragons are taking advantage of the winter sun, milling about outside without their riders. 

The area around the pit still looks tremendously empty without the massive form of Vhagar, Luke can’t help but think, even though she hasn’t stayed here since his sophomore year of undergrad. The east corner of the flat she usually laid on, littered with rough rocks she liked to scratch her hide on, sat empty for years after Aemond graduated. Now, a few of the yearlings like to sunbathe there. Luke watches two twist and chase each other low in the sky above it, a bittersweet smile crossing his face as he takes in their blue and red scales glinting in the sun. Their high-pitched shrieks and growls echo against the rock walls of the cliffs.

He spots Arrax laying in one of the grass patches by the west end of the field, pale scales looking pearl-like in the early sunlight. He raises his head as Luke approaches, great red spikes quivering in excitement as he spots his rider. Luke waves his arms around in greeting, genuine grin cracking through his foul mood, the emotions of his dragon contagious through their bond. He yells out a quick greeting in High Valyrian.

Arrax gets up on all fours, and Luke swears he feels the ground shake with it — Arrax isn’t a small beast anymore, quickly approaching the size of Daemon’s Caraxes. Still, the expression Luke has come to consider a fang-ridden smile is the same as it was when he was a hatchling, as he charges toward Luke. 

It’s a familiar song and dance. Normally, Arrax would dart toward him and throw Luke up in the air by his snout, and Luke would gleefully let him. Mindful of his new condition, he plans to call Arrax off at the last moment, tell him to settle and approach gently. However, before he opens his mouth, he sees Arrax skid to a stop himself, great talons digging into the earth to halt himself. 

“Arrax?” Luke calls, voice soft, as he walks toward him. 

His dragon still approaches him, though now he moves slowly, walking with a carefulness Luke rarely sees from the beast. He’s making inquisitive, trilling noises that have Luke frowning in confusion, as he slightly moves his great head from side to side. 

“What is it, my love?” Luke asks, at an odd humming noise Arrax makes.

Very gently, once he’s close enough, Arrax noses at his abdomen, sniffing him. Luke scratches at the scales on his dragon’s snout — by the eyes, the way he knows he likes — making his dragon trill happily. Still, knowing all too well what those behaviors mean from his dragon and what they confirm, Luke can’t help but start to sob.