Bruni's Story: Pre-Impression


I

The first time she lands herself in the infirmary, she's four.

The little girl's eyes blaze like tiny sparks as the healers apply salve to her battered limbs, as if indignant that they'd try to soothe her. Bruni needs no soothing. As a babe-in-arms, she doesn't fuss, rarely cries, and baffles her parents. Nine before this one, and this tenth is so unlike the rest that her father sometimes wonders if the child is his. But the resemblance is undeniable: her mother's dimpled cheeks and rounded nose, her father's eyes like the uncanny blue of a glacial lake, springing up through the deep gray rock of her newborn irises.

Bruni is theirs, all right - but as time flows on, it's clear she won't ever be like her siblings.

Her oldest brother jokes that the amber-brown patch in Bruni's right eye was burned there by her ever-present glare. The healers attending at the birth are shocked at the way the baby girl looks at them. Took you long enough, the eyes seem to snap. Any longer and I'd have clawed my own way out.

That same brother attends the little girl now, a soft smile playing at his lips as he looks on. His Hold duties include minding his younger siblings, but most of that was minding this one. Bruni, little spark, the one that could set an entire mountainside ablaze if unchecked. Really, it's a miracle she hasn't needed medical attention like this sooner. The moment she could walk, it was all over. Even crawling she'd been nigh impossible to keep track of. Now that she could busy herself by walking, running, and scaling woodpiles and walls - the healers were sure to be well paid, at least until Bruni honed her coordination.

"Salve nightly to the abrasions," one of the healers addresses him, pressing a jar of ointment into his hands. He can smell its herbaceousness through the lid. "Nothing's broken. At this age, they're not as fragile as we think. But she'll want to take it easy for a week. Maybe two."

Bruni's fierce eyes, attempting to set fire to the woman's back as the other healer finishes bandaging her arms, tell her brother she won't be cooperating.

"She's lucky to escape a concussion with a fall like that."

The healer's tone is serious, but Bruni's brother can't be bothered to worry. His little sister's light won't be extinguished by a fall from the rafters. He wants to tell the woman he's pretty sure the child is invincible; he's seen her escape more danger than this unscathed. But instead, he nods in understanding. He asks for a second jar of salve, just in case.

He'd carry his sister home on his shoulders, but she won't allow it. Her limbs move stiffly as she walks proudly ahead of him, the bandages hindering her mobility. Already, he can tell they won't last the night. She'd rather bloody every bit of her clothing than have to wear the restrictive wrappings as long as she should to heal. Before the skin abrasions can begin to scab, she'll wander into her father's office again, dripping blood onto his floor from a split in her lip. She'll grin at him proudly, one of her front teeth conspicuously missing. She'll be back at the infirmary with her brother again, not combative, but hardly compliant.

Bruni's parents aren't inclined to discipline her. They have nine other children, nine who don't spend their time looking for danger, nine who seem perfectly content with their roles as Lord's children. The brother who minds Bruni is her closest friend; their parents' hopes of setting the girl straight hinge on him. (That hope will fade with time, just like the girl's scars). The siblings hardly speak to one another. The only way anyone knows Bruni is fond of her older brother is her willingness to sit quietly in his presence, her intense gaze trying desperately to pry meaning from the scrawled writing in his notes. He's studying to fill his father's shoes, and he won't be there to catch her forever. She knows before she understands.

Bruni doesn't need catching. She's more than capable of catching herself - even if it means losing some skin on the way down.


II

She grows like a weed - a stout, misshapen, low-lying thing, true, but still with the power to choke out those who would oppose her.

Her childhood escapades don't leave her unmarked, of course. The tooth lost at four is replaced by an adult one, but it comes in crooked. Her split lip scars, corded and whitish; it stands out, almost glowing, whenever she smiles. She doesn't limp, but her walk is never quite as straight or graceful as her sisters'. And the sun, which she refuses to hide from during the brightest hours of the day, has marked her complexion with permanent spots. At eleven, she's as tall as she'll ever grow - five-foot-one - yet she looks older than some of her siblings. Bruni looks like a wild girl compared to the rest of them. If not for the facial resemblance to her parents and siblings, she'd be unrecognizable as their kin.

Meanwhile, she's carved her own path. Her family has long given up on coaxing her into dresses for Hold socials or educating her in community politics. The other nine continue to blossom into the people she won't be. It's easy to hide in a family with ten children, especially if you aren't the golden child. Her oldest brother, now twenty-four, holds that title.

And yet, the young man never stops watching over his youngest sister. The little scrap holds a special place in his heart. Bruni refuses to sit for every tutor the family hired; instead, she demands to sit with her brother as he studies. Whip-smart, she copies his hand diligently, converts the swirling forms into prose and speech. When she's satisfied with her ability to read and write, she stops her vigil. The child her parents thought unteachable becomes literate, and they beg to know how their son managed it. He can only shrug. All he'd done was study; Bruni taught herself. The girl isn't unteachable - she just prefers to learn on her own terms.

He still steals into the infirmary if he hears she's there, but it's not out of fear for her safety. Mostly, he just wants to make sure that the fire in her eyes is still as bright and sharp as it was the day he first brought her there. He's sure the kid doesn't belong here, in the Hold, even with all the ways she manages to find danger (entertainment, she'd call it). Every time he sees one of the Weyr's dragons fly overhead, he has half a mind to flag them down. Take Bruni, he imagines himself pleading. Take my sister with you.

Bruni is a blaze that can't be contained by the walls of their Hold. Maybe she's even too much for Meridian. Still, he hopes for something bigger for his little sister - something their home could never hope to offer.

She knows he looks after her. Her brother's always been there. But, Bruni muses as she hoists herself to the roof, they're different people. Her oldest brother is the closest thing she has to a friend; the other children, while occasionally entertaining, just aren't interesting to her. Also, they avoid her like the plague. You punch one older boy in the face so hard his nose breaks and suddenly everyone's against you. She grins, feels the pull of the scar in her bottom lip. He needed to know she wasn't bluffing when she said leave her alone or else. She'd been all too delighted to show him what else meant.

Her horizon is jagged. Forested mountain peaks tower into the sky. Their heights are ones she only dreams of reaching. She's headstrong, thrill-seeking, but Bruni isn't stupid. She doesn't have the power in her limbs to scale the peaks, nor does she know the first thing about wilderness survival. In the family library, she's searched, but there aren't any books on the subject. Most of their titles would be more useful as starters for campfires on the trek.

Besides, she thinks, the food is better down here.

The reason she wants to climb is simple, and apt for a girl on the brink of young adulthood: she wants to see the view. She wonders what the world looks like from up there. She wonders what it would be like to rise above. Like many her age, she doesn't want to be a child anymore. She winces at the slightest affection from her family, balks at the games of the other Hold children. Bruni is happy to compete with them sometimes, if only to destroy their confidence by mopping the floor with them at whatever they claim to be best at. She loves a challenge, and this place can't give it to her anymore.

As a child, she'd climb - woodpiles, bookshelves, walls, rafters - just to see if she could. She'd fall. Her brother would take her to the infirmary. She'd be at it again before her bruises had the chance to blossom. She'd probably cost the family a fortune in salves, bandages, and other assorted medical supplies. Yet no one stopped her. She kept climbing. The heights which were lofty to her once are dwarfed by the expanse of the mountains. It's not enough.

It's the same with her family as it is with the other kids - no challenges, no expectations. It drives Bruni mad. At least with resistance, she'd have something to push back against.

They won't stamp her out, but they won't kindle her flame, either.

She sits on the roof, arms curled around her knees, and watches the daylight disappear behind the mountains. Stars wink out of the darkness as the sky fades from orange to coral to violet to pitch. No one is wondering where she is; her siblings, even her brother, are too busy with themselves and their duties. Her parents are nearly ready to pass on the leadership to her brother - they have nothing to worry about. Not their nine children who turned out right, and certainly not their youngest, rogue on the roof, searching the stars for something bigger than herself.

It's a long time before Bruni descends. When she does, she feels an inexplicable heaviness. It feels like the weight of the world on the shoulders of a girl who feels like a cooling ember.


III

Bruni doesn't stop climbing. She withdraws into herself even more, becoming functionally invisible to her family and the rest of the Hold. There's a brief period of her teenage life when boys notice her; she brushes them all off. They give up quickly, on to the next prospect. Bruni glares at them the same way she glared at the healers as a girl.

Go, she spits inaudibly at each one. Take your easy way out.

She busies herself with hobbies: woodcarving, hiking, even baking, at one point, when she's particularly maddened by boredom. Her first tarts turn out terribly, the tops burnt and the bottoms soggy. She pitches them out the window and tries again. By the time she's finished, her back is soaked with sweat, her front is covered in flour, but she gets it. Her brother finds a tart on his desk later that night. Bruni doesn't have to ask his opinion - she knows it's delicious. She made sure of it with her hours of attempts and baskets of wasted ingredients. Outside, a growing crowd puzzles over the mound of failed attempts lying in the dirt.

Everything she does, she perfects. She won't settle for less. It's the only way she can stand to exist. If she's not constantly chasing an ideal, she feels like she'll blow away with the slightest breeze. Like a candle flame left in an open window, she struggles to keep herself alight. Each failure pushes her harder. Every time she's almost blown out, the cinder reignites and the flame is reborn. She worries she'll run out of fuel, but she keeps going anyway. There must be something, Bruni reassures herself, that will satisfy me longer than a day.

She's eighteen when she decides she's ready to climb the mountain.

Through her teenhood, she studies: weather patterns, local wild food, hours of daylight, the telltale motion of waves of snow down the mountainside in winter. When a group of climbers assembles, she knows it's her chance. She practically begs to join them. She's young, inexperienced, and they should call her crazy and leave her behind, but something about her eyes and the way she carries herself makes them agree to take her along. Bruni already has her gear, bought from a trader that fall. Mountain climbing is becoming more common around Meridian Weyr and its Holds. What was once rare knowledge unavailable in her family's extensive library is now commonplace. For once in her life, Bruni is ecstatic over the ease with which things fall into place. She takes up her gear and follows the team.

It's winter. The weather and the risk of avalanche make it the most dangerous time to climb, but the views, the climbers tell her, are well worth the risk. She proves herself a valuable member of the team. Her lack of experience shows only briefly. Bruni commits herself to perfection, as she always has. It matters more now than ever. The tink of her pick connecting with the rock resonates in her soul. Her muscles scream as she pulls herself up. By the end of the day, she's exhausted, but more alive than she's ever felt. The scar on her lip is pulled taut by her smile even as she sleeps.

She's scaling a cliff face with the others when something shifts. There are shouts from below. Bruni is leading the pack, this unbelievable novice with natural skill, showing off a bit by climbing faster than them. She hears the shouts too late.

The snow hits her.

She's seen avalanches from below, but never imagined the true force behind one. It hits harder than the ground rising up from the rafters. It knocks the wind out of her and she's blind. She struggles to keep her eyes open, as if her gaze could melt the wall of ice. Then she loses her grip and she's in freefall. Up, down, north, south, day, night, alive, dead - all lose their meanings as she lets go.

The other climbers don't see Bruni hit the ground. She's buried before they can blink. By some miracle, the others - those who didn't climb as quickly - are sheltered by a ledge, one which Bruni scaled with gusto just moments before. They cling to the rocks as the white roars past. They are deafened, but they survive. Only when the motion stops and they see the sun blink through the snow do they dare to move. One by one, they drop down onto solid ground, afraid to call their companion's name lest they trigger another slide.

One of the climbers sets off a flare, angling it away from the volatile snow. Meridian's climbers are watched over by rescue teams on dragonback, who patrol the mountain range for emergencies. Best not to lose good folk to preventable deaths, the Weyrwoman said when she established the teams. And no one can make it up a mountain faster than a dragon.

The one that finds the team, though, isn't from Meridian. He's here on Weyr business, seeking a small Hold at the foot of the mountain. He catches a glimpse of the flare and they turn, rider and dragon, toward it. The mountainside looks alive as the last remnants of the avalanche flow like water below where he saw the flare. His dragon spots the team first. He also senses someone else.

Panicked and hysterical, the team tell the rider about Bruni. They never should have agreed to take her, they explain. The avalanche took her. We haven't seen her. She's buried.

But no one can search a whited-out mountainside faster than a dragon.


IV

Faroth finds the girl in seconds.

As the night blue dragon and the rest of the climbing team dig her out, Philippe presses his fingers to his temples and wonders why some of these Searches involve such drama. He's seen his fair share (and more - oh, so much more) of drama, both at Isla and on worlds beyond. At least these people were somewhat prepared. Flares, magical or not, are a good start.

Beneath the snow, disoriented, breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps, Bruni feels something give.

Air - fresh air, not the stagnant aura of her trapped body - rushes into her lungs. She surprises herself with her gasp. It hitches in her throat like a sob as it hits her: she's not dead. Somehow, fate intervened to save her again. She's pulled out feet-first amid joyful shouts, cursing jumbled with exaltation. Her head swims as she clings to the arms that hoist her upright. For the first time in her life, she can't bear to let go.

The shapes before her come into focus. She's been buried for a small eternity. She sees the world in white, then black, then impossibly blue. Rukbat has risen; she remembers strapping on her gear just before sunrise. How long has it been, then? Days? Weeks?

No, she realizes as the conversations around her unscramble themselves. It's been minutes. A dragonrider saw the flare from the sky. Without him, they'd have been hopeless to find her in the endless white.

Suddenly, the portion of the sky that's stubbornly refusing to brighten comes into focus. The fragment of night, untouched by the rising star, isn't a piece of the sky after all. Bruni feels a part of her flicker back to life and she finds her voice.

"You," she gasps, shocked at the gravelly sound. "You saved my life."

Stating the obvious - a good sign, thinks Philippe; Flynnth would have words if he brought back a broken candidate. He smiles. Nods.

Bruni feels something foreign bubble up in her throat, pushing her voice out of her like air from a bellows.

"Thank you."

Gratitude. That must be its name, that odd thing erupting from her core. She doesn't recognize it. All her life, Bruni has been so damned lucky, and she's never bothered to whisper a single thank you to the universe. She wants to cry. She wants to sprint down the mountain and hold her family as tightly as her arms can manage. She drops to her knees in the snow, suddenly unable to stand.

The dragonrider is unmoved by the display. He's known this girl a total of a few minutes and already he knows Faroth's been right, yet again. It's all good news to him. The eggs won't wait. They're short candidates, and this one's thankfully intact. He can make a trip or two more today, provided his targets don't all find themselves buried in avalanches.

As he explains the reasons for his visit, Bruni feels like she's underwater. She catches words like Searched and Weyr and dragon, but her brain refuses to piece together full sentences. Her delivery back into the world, that breech birth from the snow, has been more than enough excitement for one day, even for her.

But Bruni finds her spark again when the dragon looks her in the eyes. Like magic, the pieces of the puzzle fit.

You've been Searched. Come with us to Isla Weyr. A dragon is waiting.

She agrees to come with them. Embraces her team heartily, surprising every one of them. Before they leave, she makes Philippe take her to her home at the base of the mountain. (He's not one to be made to do anything, but there's something about the fervor with which she asks.)

Bruni's brother, her eldest, her longest-standing supporter, is the first to know.

Her parents and siblings follow, save for the ones who are travelling on Hold business - they'll learn later, either by letter or when they return. All are more than happy to send her off. This child who could never find her place at their Hold, now a woman plucked from the brink of death, was born ready. And yet Bruni is a different girl than the one who left just days before to ascend the peak. She hugs her family. She smiles. Her scar glows stark white against the flush of her lips. Her mother swears she sees the diamond glint of a tear in the corner of her youngest daughter's eye as she says her farewells.

Her brother beams as she leaves with Philippe and Faroth. He watches the sky long after they disappear between.

Good luck, he thinks, breaking into a grin. Isla Weyr will need it!


V

As soon as her feet touch the ground, she throws up.

Maybe it's the near-death experience up on the mountain, the sudden change in altitude, the travel between realities, or the fact that she adamantly refused to be seen by healers before departing for Isla Weyr. Whatever the reason, she retches pathetically onto the dirt for several minutes, even after her stomach is empty and there's nothing left to give.

When she manages to look up at her Searchrider, her eyes and nose are dripping with tears and acid.

It's common, he assures her, though she's not sure if that's the case; Isla Weyr is bigger than anything she's ever seen, and she strongly doubts that any significant percentage of its riders vomit every time they fly.

At the infirmary, the healers examine her. They check the size of her pupils and she's four years old again, glaring at the healers like they're inconveniencing her. One of them notes the unusual copper patch in her right eye. They give her water, which she gulps greedily, then almost immediately throws up onto the floor. Once she's got control of herself again, they put the cup back in her hands and tell her to drink slowly this time.

As a child, she probably would have kept the disgusting cycle going, just to prove she was her own person. As an adult, though, she obliges.

The nausea ebbs gradually. Altitude sickness, the healers nod. Bruni thinks it's an unfortunate symptom of just having a day.

They recommend some time by the beaches (in the shade, of course). She should report to the candidates' quarters right away and get oriented, but this is a new place, and she's still not feeling quite well enough to guarantee her stomach will hold through training. So Bruni sits on the sand, her head sheltered by the shade of a tree and her legs stretched out into the sun. A few people, some younger than herself, are sifting through the sand nearby, looking for something. The salty tang of the air soothes her stomach. She breathes deeply for the first time in a long time.

Her bare foot strikes something in the sand. Curious, Bruni leans forward and digs for it. The sand is hot between her palms and falls away from the object in a cascade of tiny crystals. It's rounded, off-white with the slightest sheen of gold, and warm to the touch. She puts the pieces together: it's not a rock, it's an egg. The people down the beach from her are looking for eggs. The warmth is half from the sand, half from the life growing within. She scoops the little egg into her lap and leans back into the shade, surprised at her exhaustion from doing something so easy.

Oblivious to the fact, Bruni falls asleep. Her exposed legs burn bright red as Rukbat crosses the sky. The egg rolls gently off her lap and into the curve of her waist. She doesn't dream.

Movement rouses her, and a tapping. Before she can blink the sand out of her eyes, it's happening. A crack appears, and then another, and then full shards are coming loose. Bruni scrambles to her feet. Her head throbs. She drops to her knees next to the egg - they warned her, back at the infirmary, not to stand up too fast - and watches, transfixed.

A claw punches through the shell, breaking the entire structure apart in one blow. Bruni's racing heart drowns out the incessant creeling for food; she's focused on the brilliant colour of the hatchling's hide and the way it catches the light.

Gold.

The little queen looks up, cocks her head at Bruni, and reaches hungrily through the space between them. When their minds touch, Bruni gasps. The creeling resumes and all Bruni can think of is food. She picks up the shining creature and races for the lower caverns. She's not an expert - yet - but she knows there must be food nearby if people are out Impressing firelizards.

She ducks into the shade, blinks to adjust her eyes. The queen's vocalizations are much louder in an enclosed space. Sure enough, though, there it is - meat. A couple of other people are here too, feeding their own hatchlings.

Bruni's queen needs no instructions. She tucks into her first meal with enthusiasm. Her human sits nearby, enthralled by the way the hatchling tears at the raw flesh. It's like she was born knowing everything - who to bond, what to seek, how to survive. Bruni feels a twinge of envy. She's got the scars to prove she wasn't born knowing everything.

She looks fondly at the hatchling again. She's hers now, an unexpected but welcome companion. And a queen. Her confidence swells. Naturally, she says to herself, and her smile pulls joyfully at her scar.

Bruni names the creature Apogee. It's a word she saw in her brother's notes as a child. The highest point. A culmination. She's waxing poetic, she knows, but the name feels right. Everything about being at Isla Weyr feels right (save for the vomiting, which thankfully seems to be over).

Apogee curls around Bruni's shoulders as if she's always been there, dozing gently as her human completes her candidate paperwork. It's too late in the day for training; she's shown to her bunk, where she collapses. Apogee clambers awkwardly from under Bruni's neck and chitters grumpily in protest. Bruni reaches out a hand to scratch the hatchling's chin, which seems to pacify the displaced queen. Apogee settles for curling up next to Bruni's shoulder, leeching what warmth she can from the crook of her neck.

The new candidate breathes, and the air tastes like something she can't name. It's more than the evening meals cooking, the salt on the breeze, or the scent of other people. She drifts in and out of sleep, too exhausted to place the unfamiliar flavour.

She'll realize it soon, when her feet touch the Hatching Sands and she sees the rocking of the eggs for the first time. It'll come to her with the murmur of the spectators and the rumbling of mother dragons. She'll realize her own apogee, the peak she hasn't yet reached, the one she's been chasing since the first time she slipped from the woodpile. And that won't be the end of it: she'll find ways to keep climbing beyond what she knows, her flames burning ever brighter.

For now, though, Bruni rolls onto her side and sleeps.