Chapter Text
September 625 AU
Two things of note for all cadets in the Rider’s quadrant: Try not to die, and don’t be late for formation.
– A GUIDE TO SURVIVING THE RIDERS QUADRANT, SECOND EDITION (UNAUTHORIZED ADDITION)
Naolin
It takes me a few moments to orient myself when I wake up. As I groggily start to come to I notice a few things: the way my left cheek is pressed into the warm pillow, how the sheets have pooled around my hips, and that I’m alone in my bed – which I hadn’t been when I fell asleep.
“Urgh—” I groan as I start to sit up. I look around my room. My flight leathers still lie scattered around the floor, but they are not joined by his. I try to find a trace that I didn’t imagine him in my bed last night. At first, I find none, except for the lingering amazing ache in my body, but then I see a note scribbled on a small piece of paper lying on the nightstand: Forgive me, but you looked too cute. The bastard had even drawn a little winking face next to the words. I start to smile, a fuzzy feeling spreading in my stomach before I can stop it.
Where did he go? This is my first coherent thought, quickly followed by: What time is it?
“Your lover is headed to morning formation which is about to start,” Tairn says, answering both of my questions.
I’m too busy scrambling to get out of bed and reaching for my clothes to tell him that Brennan isn’t mine. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I mutter as I glance at a clock telling me that I’ve got exactly seven minutes before the beginning of formation. “Why the fuck didn’t you wake me up?” I swear at Tairn but he only scoffs, no doubt, waking up lazy riders isn’t something dragons do.
I make it out of my room while still buttoning up my black shirt. Three minutes. I start running through the halls towards the courtyard.
“Maybe if you spent more hours of the night actually sleeping, you would actually be on time,” Tairn says as if I don’t spend most nights shielding him out as he spends his nights with his mate rather than sleeping.
“I am almost always on time,” I throw as a retort towards my dragon.
Right on time, I make it out onto the courtyard. I slow down as I enter it, thanks to the training two years in the rider’s quadrant has given me I am hardly out of breath.
I wince at how quiet it is as all the riders wait for formation to start. I am, obviously and without a doubt, the last one to join. I stretch my back and try to make it seem as though I have a valid reason for being late. With as much pretend dignity as I can muster I make my way toward Second Wing; Flame Section.
I take my place at the front of Flame Section, where my place as Section Leader is, and look at no one. Instead, I keep my gaze firmly locked on Captain Fitzgibbons as the scribe starts to read from the death roll. I breathe out, sighing in relief.
“Glad you made it.” The low voice comes from behind me, where Brennan stands at the front of First Squad. I very deliberately do not glance back at him, but I can feel the way his eyes watch me and my imagination steps in to fill my mind with the way his cheeks dimple when smiling. I just know that he is smiling.
I roll my shoulders, trying to release some of the tension. “You could have woken me up, jackass,” I try to whisper but I don’t know whether he can hear me, seeing as I’m still fully turned to the dais with my back to him.
In my mind, I can hear Tairn snort, “You seem to be dishing out that remark to everyone you care about this morning.”
“What gave you the impression that I care about you,” I shoot down the mental connection to my dragon, who snorts in a way that could be considered a laugh.
“You’re particularly cranky this morning.” Well, I feel cranky. I throw up my shields.
I’m not looking at Brennan, but I can clearly hear the smile on his lips as he answers. “Didn’t you get my note?” He leans forward until I can almost feel his breath against my neck. “You looked too cute to wake up,” he stage-whispers.
I want to glare at him. Not only am I late to morning formation, but it’s painfully obvious why I am late – no matter what pretence I’m trying to uphold. I keep my gaze locked forward, blatantly ignoring the man I sleep next to almost every night.
“I’ve brought you breakfast,” Brennan continues to stage-whisper. On cue, I feel my stomach turn with hunger. I brave a glance over my shoulder and my eyes catch on his warm, amber ones. I just stare into his eyes for a moment, keeping eye contact and forgetting that the entire quadrant surrounds us. Instead, I’m brought back to soft touches, hungry lips, eyes filled with need, and moans filled with desperation.
I swallow as I tear my eyes from his to look at the sandwich wrapped in a napkin. I reach behind my back and take the outstretched sandwich from him. “Thank you,” is all I manage to say before everyone around us starts to move. Right, formation – obviously over now.
Finn and Edda break free from their positions in Second Squad and come up behind me, distracting me further from the force of nature that is Brennan Sorrengail. My two third-year squad mates look more put together in non-wrinkly flight leathers and tamed hair. Once again I am shocked that I made section leader.
“I chose you for the way you balance your heart with your ruthlessness and the way that makes you an empathic but strong leader,” Tairn says in my mind.
“I thought I shielded you out.” My shields must have dropped when I got distracted by—
“Good night?” Finn swings one of his arms around my shoulders, even though I am slightly taller than he is, and grins in that wicked way of his. Edda laughs as she walks on my other side and we start to walk off the courtyard and towards the gym where we third years usually spend our free morning period. I can still feel the burning hot gaze of Brennan’s eyes on the back of my head. I wouldn’t admit it, not to anyone, but whenever he looks at me; it makes me feel like all the stars and the sun combined.
I only smile a small smile in Finn’s direction and wink. I take a bite of the sandwich Brennan prepared for me, cheese and tomatoes – my favourite.
I throw a look over my shoulder. My eyes immediately find him: he has turned away from where my squad is walking back into the building. I look at the way he stands with his arms crossed as he is talking to Brynna Hold, Sylvie’s twin sister, a second year in his squad. I can’t help but notice how soft his curls look, or how strong his arms are – also can’t help but remember how they held me as we fell asleep last night. My smile grows.
Edda shoves her elbow into my stomach. “Stop thinking inappropriate thoughts Nao,” she laughs. I don’t answer her, just continue chewing on my sandwich. “Does it not even bother you slightly that you’re his commanding Section Leader?”
She has a good point, and I know it. But Brennan and I have been doing, whatever this is, since solstice last year – when I was nothing more than Second Squads Squad Leader, and he was a first year in a different squad. And it’s technically not against the codex. I shrug my shoulders. “Nah, couldn’t be bothered really.” Edda rolls her eyes exasperated. “And,” I start to say, looking at her with fake seriousness. “Don’t think I haven’t seen you slip out of our Wing leader’s room more than once since August, Edda,” I say pointedly. She blushes but doesn’t say anything. Finn’s laugh echoes through the halls.
A wave of affection for them courses through me. We are the only third-years left from our squad. They’re my only family here and I’m terrified that I will lose one, or both, of them. Brennan’s face flashes in front of my eyes, but I push it away. He and I haven’t so much as mentioned what we are to each other, but my squad is implicitly my family.
—
A few hours later, the entire quadrant is filing into Battle Brief. It’s only September and with both Gauntlet, Presentation, and Threshing still to come in the next month the room is crammed and all third years have to stand at the end of the room.
Professors Devera and Markham start introducing today’s lesson, but I am only half listening. My thoughts are split between what needs to be done in preparation for Gauntlet practice and the way Brennan sits two rows in front of me. My brain can’t help but notice the way his shoulder blades flex through his summer uniform whenever he changes his position, or how he tilts his head just a fraction while he contemplates whatever Devera is saying.
That is until Devera’s voice cut through my thoughts as if they were made of butter. “Multiple reports of unrest throughout Tyrrendor have been reported. Locations such as Aretia, Athebyne and Tirvainne have all—”
Unrest in Tyrrendor? How come I haven’t heard of this until now?
Edda and Finn both glance at me from where they are standing on my left side, and two rows ahead I can see Brennan slowly turning his head to glance back at me.
“Tairn–?” I ask him down our mental connection.
“I do not know loyal one, perhaps this is a good time to use the privilege of writing home,” he states.
I think of my family and the place I used to call my only home in the Tyrrish mountains. Before Basgiath became a second home, before my squad mates became my second family, and before thinking of my future home made me think of Tairn and amber eyes.
I can see Edda about to ask me something, but I just shake my head. I don’t know anything. I let my blue eyes connect with the amber ones still looking at me, I just give him a small shrug.
Once Battle Brief is finished for the day we all file out of the room and head towards the cafeteria for lunch. I’m deep in thought, already working on how to word a letter to my parents when someone grabs my wrist and pulls me out of the line of riders walking down the hallways.
I recognise the grip on my wrist and the faint smell of Brennan, so I don’t reach for any of the daggers strapped to me as he pulls me into a half-hidden alcove.
“Brennan wha—” I start to ask as he pushes me into the alcove and traps me between the wall and his body. But I’m interrupted by his lips on mine.
My hands come up to his cheeks on instinct as I melt into the kiss. Even though we have kissed a million times, every kiss feels like the first one and I never want this to stop.
His hands are placed on the wall beside my head and mine are on his cheeks. I can’t help but play a little with his red-brown curls where my fingertips tangle with his hair. I can feel him sigh against my lips, pressing his body even closer to mine and dragging his tongue against my bottom lip – I open my mouth a fraction so our tongues can dance with each other.
He makes me weak in the knees and warm in my chest in a way no one else makes me feel, in a way I let no one else make me feel. Only with him can I let myself be someone other than the stoic section leader I need to be in front of the rest of the quadrant.
After way too short of a time, his lips slow down and leave my mouth. My eyes are still closed as he rests his forehead against mine. His breath is warm against my lips as he tries to catch his breath, he is out of breath in a way I only ever see him in sultry situations like this one.
“Am I forgiven for not waking you up and making you late for formation?” the cheeky bastard says. I open my eyes and find him already looking at me.
With a smile, I lean forward to give him a quick and light kiss. “All’s forgiven, even though my friends will never let me live it down and our Wing Leader probably will have reprimanding words to me later,” I say this with a playful tone, so he understands that I’m not actually upset about it.
He gives me a blinding smile, his cheeks dimpling.
We walk next to each other towards the cafeteria – not holding hands, but our hands occasionally brushing together as we walk.
“Have you heard anything from your family about what is going on in Tyrrendor?” he asks after a while. From the careful way that he asks it, and from the curious glint in his eyes, I can tell he wants an answer but he is unsure how I will react.
I really wish that I had an answer for him, an answer that could satisfy his curiosity, but I don’t. “I haven’t heard anything, mother didn’t mention anything in the letter she sent at the beginning of September.” I look over at him and bite my lip. “I’ll write to them this evening, see if they know anything. But they’re a bit closed off from the bigger cities, it might be that they haven’t heard anything.”
“I understand that Naolin,” Brennan says. “I’ll see if I can find my dad and maybe he knows something useful.” Brennan gives me a reassuring smile, and until now I hadn’t even noticed that I needed reassurance.
Everyone knows that Brennan is the eldest son of Professor General Sorrengail stationed here at Basgiath as an instructor, though it is not as common knowledge that his father is a scribe working away in the Archives.
We have stopped right outside the cafeteria, where I will join my squad and he will join his. “Thank you, Brennan, I appreciate it,” I tell him.
He brushes a hand against my cheek, as if we’re more to each other than just a fuck to release built-up tension and hormones, and gives a small nod before stepping away and slinking into the cafeteria.
I lean my forehead against the cold stone wall and take deep breaths. I cannot be falling for him. We have been casually fucking for almost a year now, but this fluttering feeling in my stomach was never part of the plan.
Romantic feelings do not belong at Basgiath War Collage. I cannot be falling for Brennan Sorrengail.
“You should have thought of that before you hit the ground, loyal one.”
“Fuck. You.” Tairn just laughs.
Is he right? Had I missed it when I fell and have now already hit the ground?
I decide not to think about it.