#tauri!oc

[barbreadsbooks]

Wheat in Wartime —

Chapter Eight: Threshing

word count: 3.9k

warnings: death, blood, violence, vomiting, medical procedures, swearing, implied/referenced child abuse

a/n: and soon you'll witness just how much i love the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini

masterlist | ao3

—

Blue Dragons descend from the extraordinary Gormfaileas line. Known for their formidable size, they are the most ruthless, especially in the case of the rare Blue Daggertail, whose knifelike spikes at the tip of their tail can disembowel an enemy with one flick. — Colonel Kaori's Field Guide to Dragonkind

—

"Maybe I shouldn't have gone on a run this morning," I sign from beside Ridoc, careful to avoid the breakfast he's vomiting up on the edge of the valley we're about to enter again.

"You went running this morning?" Rhiannon asks, her eyes wide. "Didn't you have a late enough night as it is?"

"Ooh, a late night?" Sawyer teases from my other side, eyebrows waggling. He's trying to lighten the tense mood, and damnit, it's working. "Who'd you sleep with?"

I roll my eyes at him. "No one." He just smirks at me. If I keep my sentences short, with fairly simple words, Sawyer can keep up with my side of the conversation. "Just couldn't sleep. Besides," I turn to Rhi, "at this point it's just habit. Liam and I go for a run in the morning and I am a more pleasant person for it."

"I wonder what unpleasant Joan Graycastle looks like," Violet muses, a wry grin on her lips.

"She's me, but more likely to throw things when she's angry. Which is all the time."

Ridoc stands up fully, wipes his mouth, and grins at me. "You should let her out more often."

I pat his cheek, careful to not get anywhere near his mouth. "Trust me, no one wants that."

The five of us are fully outfitted for everything we should anticipate for Threshing. Sawyer gave us an idea of what it was like last year with just one word. "Bloodbath." So we all came prepared.

Rhiannon and I both have a shortsword strapped to our hips, Sawyer and Ridoc each have a sword at their backs, and every single sheathe between the five of us has a dagger in it. Violet touches each of the handles along her ribs and thighs like a prayer. Sawyer also insisted all of us carry a waterskin with us. "You might be stuck out there all day. I don't care if it's October and it's not that hot, you need to bring some goddamn water."

Professor Kaori amplifies his voice with lesser magic and draws all of our attention to him. "In a few minutes, you'll be let into the valley, and Threshing will begin. If you have not bonded with a dragon by dusk, leadership will find you within the valley and escort you out. We'll be watching, but there will be no interference from any senior riders.

"I don't recommend walking in groups—dragons are less likely to approach and more likely to torch you if there are others around. Trust your gut; if your dragon has already chosen you, they'll lead you to them."

I look at my squadmates. I don't feel a thing, but it looks like Rhiannon and Sawyer do. Violet and Ridoc both meet my eyes, and all three of us shrug at each other.

I guess we'll see what happens.

"Good luck. Stay alive."

Before we can walk into the valley, Ridoc pulls all five of us into a hug, our faces squishing together. "See you on the flight field."

We all give each other one last squeeze, then split up, as suggested, and enter the valley.

—

I haven't seen a single dragon yet, and it's nearly sunset. Every time I think I'm feeling a pull, when I start to follow it, it changes direction; I feel like I've been walking in circles for hours.

Dried blood flakes off my hands as I wipe my palms on my legs. A girl from Third Wing tried to cut off my head with her sword when I ran into her, so I returned the favor and shoved my shortsword through her neck.

I stop for just a moment in the shade of a yellowing tree and drink from my waterskin. Sawyer was right, the heat is bearable, but all day in it is exhausting. I'll have to thank him if I live through this.

If we all live through this.

Crack!

My head whirls to the sound of the breaking branch, but I don't see anyone or anything. The shadows are getting longer as the sun gets lower, and I strain to see through them. Nothing moves after a minute, so I move on, still trying to follow the elusive pull I feel in my gut, but I unsheathe my shortsword and white-knuckle a dagger in my other hand, just in case. 

I catch movement out of the corner of my eye as I step away from the tree. But when I turn to meet the shaded person, a second figure steps up from behind and hits me across the jaw.

Zane Burdril.

I stumble for a second, giving the first figure just enough time to appear on my other side.

Finn Gladdon.

Both of them smirk at me. "Knew we'd find you out here."

"Guess we were right," Zane replies. "Dragons don't want someone defective."

I glower at the pair of them, which just makes Finn smile. "Look, Zane, she's going to cry. Tears don't work around here, Graycastle. You have to use your—"

I throw my dagger and nail him in the thigh, then turn to Zane and slash at him with my sword. He's quicker than he was that first week of challenges, but so am I. He steps back, and I follow, dodging the large sword he's swinging around. I keep close to throw off his equilibrium, and pull a second dagger to slice at the gaps between armor and leather.

Finn charges at me from behind. I tuck and roll and get both of them in front of me.

It's like Halden and Alic all over again.

I stop thinking. Both of them come at me, and I let muscle memory take over. I've fought my brothers for years now, what's two more bullies?

Zane missteps. It's one little mistake, but he doesn't lift his sword fast enough to block me, and my sword stabs through his chest. He coughs blood onto my face, then the light leaves his eyes.

"Shame," Finn whispers directly into my ear.

Fuck. I whirl around, my sword pulling out of Zane's chest, raised and ready to block—

Finn's dagger meets me in the gut.

"Give Malek my best." He rips the dagger out of me, then runs off, not even bothering a glance to his friend.

I drop to my hands and knees, my vision going fuzzy at the edges. I'm about to bleed out in the middle of this valley, next to a dead body.

Alic didn't make it past Threshing, either.

Fuck this. I am not dying today.

I press one hand to the wound and search Zane's body with the other. He doesn't have anything but weapons on him, so I make quick use of them. I cut off my own shirt sleeves and stuff them into the wound near my right hip. Then I rip off Zane's sleeves, tie them together, then tie it around myself as a makeshift bandage. I do the same thing with his boot laces, and make sure to pull as tightly as I can to keep pressure on the wound.

If I live to dusk, I'll live to try again next year.

The wind picks up and pulls at my braids. I look up, above the trees, then scramble back at what I see.

A dragon. A White Dragon. It lands right in front of me, then lowers its head and looks directly into my eyes.

"Are you a rider, Josefyne Tauri? Or are you a meal?"

—

My knees buckle and I'm back on the forest floor. Holy fucking shit. This is a dragon. A dragon is talking to me right now.

"Answer the question, Princess."

His voice is deep and gravely and resonant and sends a surge of warmth through my chest. I try to shift back onto my knees to lift my hands and sign, but I don't trust myself to support my weight.

"Before you bleed out."

I follow the voice in my head to its source, and find a warm white glow. I don't try to think too hard on it, and speak directly to the glow in my head.

"I don't think I'd taste very good."

I nearly burst into tears, just from the joy of finally getting to talk without my hands.

The dragon before me hums deep in his throat. "Nor do I. Come." He extends his leg, his claws as long as my legs. "There's not much time left."

I brace myself, then stand, wobbling as I go, but I pause before I can touch him. I turn to meet his eyes. "How do you know who I am?"

"Because you are mine." Another surge of warmth washes over me. "I chose you from the moment you stopped on the Parapet."

That long?

"Yes."

My thoughts aren't my own, and while that should be concerning, all I feel is comfort. "Does anyone else know?"

"No. No one has looked, because I have claimed you."

I sigh. Good. I keep my hand pressed to my hip, then look at the leg he expects me to climb, and falter.

Without my asking, he lowers himself to the point I could crawl up to his seat if I needed to. I manage to walk, only stumbling twice with the limited light the dusk is providing, and make it to his seat. The second I'm situated, one hand on the pommel, he rises to his full height, shifts his wings, and launches us into the sky.

Before I can start to slip, magical bands wrap around my thighs, keeping me in place. "Thanks."

We fly high up into the air, almost to the clouds. "They expect a show. Try not to lose your lunch."

"I haven't had lunch—oh shit!"

He drops us into a spiraling dive, then levels off before we can hit the mountainside. Then he takes us into a sharp incline that I definitely would've lost my seat from if he wasn't keeping me in place. The incline leads to a steep dive, where he banks at the last second and hovers in the center of the flight field, then lands with a crashing boom!

He lifts his neck and—is he preening? "That was fun."

The bands lift from around my legs and I get up from the seat, then slide down his leg as much as I can to avoid any more pain than I'm already in. I pat his leg, wincing at the blood staining his scales. "Let's do it again sometime."

"Yes, let's."

I start walking toward the roll keeper's table, though it's not a far trip—he landed as close to the table as he could. "Do you have a name?"

"Does the sun rise?"

I roll my eyes. "They're going to ask for it. What should I tell them?"

"Astarlanenach. And since they will ask, I am a Blue Daggertail."

I almost trip. I bonded a Blue Daggertail?

"Yes, you did. And you can call me Astar."

"Astar," I repeat. "How do you spell your full name?"

He spells it, then his voice gets even deeper. "Keep your eyes down."

I step up to the roll keeper and keep my eyes solely on her, careful not to drift to the leadership and returning senior riders arguing behind her. I remove my hand from my hip to sign Astar's name to her. When she nods and acknowledges that she has it down correctly, I take a step back, nearly falling to my ass, but warm arms wrap around me and lift me off my feet.

Liam.

He smiles at me. "You bonded."

It takes a moment for me to remember to sign—this mind-to-mind communication is already spoiling me. "So did you."

"Deigh, Red Daggertail."

"Astar, Blue Daggertail."

His eyebrows lift impossibly high. "I thought there weren't any Blues willing to bond this year."

"There weren't. But Astar's a White Dragon, and apparently does whatever he wants."

"Yes, I do."

Liam stops, and I register where we are. He didn't carry me back to Astar—he carried me to the medical station. My throat closes and my breathing immediately picks up. I shift in Liam's arms, and he tenses. "What?"

I meet his crystal blue eyes and don't bother with the energy it takes to hide my rising panic. "Healers—medics—I don't—"

"Breathe, Little One." Astar's voice fills my head and leaves no room for argument. "You've lost too much blood. Any more and you'll be the shortest lived White Dragon rider in history."

Liam's arms tighten around me as understanding crosses his eyes. "I'll stay with you."

I manage a deep breath. "Okay." Best to get it over with before I lose my nerve.

He calls out to the medics and they clear a table to lay me down on. Finn stabbed me on my right side, so Liam takes my left hand—the one covered in blood—and keeps clear of the two riders trying to keep me alive. One of them, the brunette, slips a vial of pain tonic past my lips and lifts my head to help me swallow, but I swat their hand away before I can drink all of it.

"What the fuck—"

"Only half," I sign, wincing as the blonde cuts away my makeshift bandages. "Or I'll be sick."

They give me a skeptical look but shrug and stopper the vial again. "Whatever you say."

The blonde continues at my torso, pulling away Zane's sleeves, my own, and—

"You found boot laces?" Liam asks, barely holding back a laugh. "Very resourceful."

Astar's voice cuts into my mind again. "The Empyrean meets. All of the dragons have been summoned."

"You're leaving?"

"Just for a matter to be settled. Don't die until I come back."

The brunette must get the same sort of message, because they wait until all of the dragons launch into the sky before stitching me up. Even with the pain tonic, I gasp as they pull my skin back together. The only thing keeping me from hyperventilating is Liam's grip on my hand—he's squeezing mine as hard as I'm squeezing his.

"Jo! Jo!" A tall strawberry blonde head of wiry hair appears over both the medics working on me, and I smile as Sawyer rushes to the medical station, the rest of our friends following behind him.

Liam starts to pull his hand away, but I catch his fingers and hold on tight. "Don't leave me," I try to tell him with my eyes, and he must get at least some of the message, because he re-grips my hand and settles back into his seat.

Sawyer, Rhiannon, Violet, and Ridoc all come around to my left side, various looks of horror on their faces.

"Jo, you're covered in blood."

"Should've seen her when she got off her dragon," Liam mutters, and all four heads turn to him. "Looked like she was dead."

I can't lift my right arm from its spot pinned under the medic, and my left hand is clutching Liam like a lifeline, so I just listen to each of my friends retell their time in the valley.

Rhi was the first out—the Green Daggertail from Presentation, Feirge, found her and she just knew. Sawyer was next—Sliseag, a Red Swordtail, bonded him after he fought and killed a cadet from First Wing. Ridoc tells us Aotrom, his Brown Swordtail, popped out of the trees and scared him, and only chose him because he talked back to the dragon instead of cowering. Violet was second-to-last from our squad. She recounts protecting the Feathertail by fighting off Jack, Oren, and Tynan—Jack ran off, Oren was knocked unconscious, and Tairn, the Black Morningstartail, killed Tynan. Now she's bonded to both Tairn and Andarna, the Gold Feathertail.

All of us turn to Liam. Even though he's not part of our squad, he's still here, and at the very least I want to hear how Threshing went for him.

"He was just...waiting for me. In the middle of a small clearing, just sitting there. I knew he was the one when he didn't scorch me when I got within twenty feet of him."

"As all true loves go," Ridoc muses with a nod of his head.

The medic gives a final tug that I hiss at, then they tie off the stitches and help me sit up. The blonde wraps a bandage around my waist while the brunette talks. "You're going to the Healers Quadrant immediately after this. Immediately. These stitches are shit, and probably won't last you walking down the stairs out of the flight field, so you need to be looked at as soon as possible. And before you try to justify sleeping in your bed if the stitches don't pop, the amount of blood you lost means you actually should be dead right now, if your dragon gave my dragon an accurate estimate, so you need to be attached to a fluid line overnight. Got it?"

Now that I'm sitting up, the world starts to tilt, and I don't have it in me to argue. I know they're right, even if my heart feels like it's going to beat out of my chest.

"Stay here 'til the dragons get back, eat this," they shove a bag of jerky into my hands, "and drink some fucking water." They both move on to new patients, and leave the six of us where we are.

I prop my feet up on the bench beside Liam, Violet sits on the other side of my feet, and Rhiannon sits beside me on the table, silently offering herself for me to lean on.

I gladly accept. I uncap my waterskin and finish it off, then sign to Sawyer before I forget, "You were right about the water."

He beams. "I fucking told you guys."

Now they all watch as I sign what happened in the valley for me, with Violet translating for Sawyer. None of them are surprised about Zane and Finn, and all of them laugh at me taking the boot laces for my triage. But they're all silent when I tell them I bonded a Blue Daggertail—a White Blue Daggertail.

They're all thinking the same thing I am—my dragon is a death sentence. He might be the most powerful dragon in The Vale, and he might think I'm strong enough to channel his power, but there hasn't been a rider alive to survive this bond.

I'm walking into this blind, and I might not walk out.

"There you all are." We all turn to watch Dain join us, and I feel Liam squeeze my ankle once before he slips away. "You all bonded."

"Are we all that's left?" I ask, and he nods solemnly.

"Five out of ten. Better than expected, actually. And our squad has the most surviving members from Parapet to Gauntlet, so they'll be giving us a patch. Iron Squad."

It's good news, I guess, but it's still depressing. We've lost five people, and that's the best in the whole Quadrant?

The sound of wings draws all of our eyes upward. A wave of dragons fly over us, covering the night sky in color. Each one that lands sends a resounding boom across the flight field. They're in the same positions as before, senior riders and dragons on one side of the aisle, newly bonded riders and dragons on the other, in order of exit from the valley.

Astar is last.

Rhiannon helps me off the table, but since Feirge is one of the first dragons in line, Ridoc takes her place, while Dain walks with Violet. They, too, eventually join their dragons, and it's just me and Violet walking to the end of the line.

"Can I say hi?" I ask her as we approach her dragons.

She smiles at me. "She'd like that."

The Gold Feathertail—Andarna, Violet reminds me—walks right up to me at Violet's side. "I'm glad you're okay."

Violet smiles again. "She remembers you, from Presentation. She also thinks you're beautiful."

"Thank you." I go to say something else, but a deep voice sounds in my head.

"Leadership grows impatient, Little One."

"They can wait one more minute." I sign to Andarna one last time. "I'm glad we'll get to see each other again." I nod at the enormous black dragon waiting just a few steps away to avoid getting my head chomped off, then slowly walk to Astar. "You couldn't have bonded me a little earlier in the day?"

"Where's the fun in that?"

"You're one for a dramatic entrance. Noted."

General Sorrengail takes to the dais, and I understand why we're all the way in the back.

"Thanks."

I hear and feel him hum low in his throat.

The General amplifies her voice to reach us at the furthest edges of the formation, congratulating us on joining a new family, bonded for life. "Riders, take the next step into your bright futures."

"She means that literally. Step forward."

I do as he says, mimicking the other first years.

"Now, we celebrate!"

Fire erupts across my back, licking down my spine and wrapping around my hip and leg, right where Finn stabbed me. I almost buckle under the heat, but as quickly as the pain shows up, that's how quickly it disappears. I pat at what's left of my tunic, but nothing's burning. I look down at my stitched and wrapped up stab wound, it's still intact. The small strip of skin between the gauze wrapping around my torso and the top of my pants, though, on the right side, there's a sparkle of white.

"Your relic." I swear he's grinning at me when I turn and look at him. "I don't recommend disrobing and looking at it here, though. Most would find it unbecoming."

"Most?" I tease.

"There are definitely a few that would not complain."

"As long as one of the complainers is General Melgren, I don't care about the rest." The other dragons begin to launch into the sky, and I take a step toward Astar and run my hand along his smooth scales. "You didn't wash off the blood."

"Did you think I would?"

"Yes. You're covered in it."

"So are you, Little One." He brings his head down until he's eye level with me—a feat not easily done by a dragon of his size. "You are my rider, and I am your dragon. You might fear the consequences of my power, but I know I have chosen well. You are unkillable, Josefyne Tauri."

I swallow thickly around the lump in my throat. "Everything dies."

"True. But not everything is killed. I have seen your heart, Princess, and it is not so different from mine. You will survive this."

I press my forehead to his snout and breathe deeply. "Okay."

"Good." He huffs out a breath, blowing the loose hairs out of my face, and I step back.

I don't take my eyes off the sky until he's out of my sight.

—

a/n: listen, i just love saphira, so i had to give Jo a blue dragon that calls her 'little one,' it wouldn't feel right if i didn't. reblogs and comments are always appreciated :)

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