Legals: This story is entirely fictional. Some of the characters may be inspired by real people, but most are made up. The events of this story exist only in my mind and in those of the readers.
Also, this is my first attempt at writing anything so any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Dragon Keepers 3
Pelath stepped into his washroom and cleaned his face before heading down to breakfast. He was hoping that he would be able to avoid Olridian. He didn't really want to deal with him just yet. He just wanted to get through today without any other hick ups. He scanned the mess hall and breathed a sigh of relief. He quickly got himself an apple and a glass of juice and made a quick exit out into the gardens.
Olridian checked himself in the mirror of his washroom. He looked like shit. In the past two hours he had run the gamut of emotions, from desire and lust in the showers, wonder, hope, joy and love while watching Pelath's performance to heartbreak and now sorrow. "Damn him! What gives him the right to make me feel like this?!" Olridian took a deep breath and washed his face with cold water.
He stood there for a while just watching the water flow down the sink. He snapped himself out of his trance and shut off the water, going back into his room. He grabbed a brush and dragged it through his dishevelled hair, the simple act of brushing helping to calm him some what. Grabbing an elastic Olridian pulled his hair up into a pony tail, his fringe falling to sit at the corners of his eyes. He took one last look in the mirror before heading down to the mess hall for breakfast. "Better, much better." He thought to himself as he headed for the door.
He made his way down to breakfast and stopped at the door into the mess hall. Olridian popped his head around the corner and scanned the room for any sign of Pelath. He breathed a sigh of relief but felt strangely disappointed.
"Damn him" he muttered under his breath. "Damn who hon?" came a voice from just behind him. Olridian almost jumped out of his skin. He spun around and just about slipped down the steps into the hall. It was Yanka and she caught him just in time.
"Hold up, no need to freak out there" she said trying, but failing dismally, to keep a straight face. "Yanka! You dog! I just about shat myself not to mention almost breaking my neck! What the hell were you doing sneaking up on me like that? Honestly if it was anybody else you would be dead right now!" Olridian was furious. That did it for Yanka; she threw her head back and roared with laughter, tears streaming down her face. Olridian turned on his heels and stormed off into the mess hall leaving Yanka to pull herself back together.
He grabbed himself a plate and loaded it up with sausages and scrambled eggs muttering darkly under his breath. Yanka moved up behind him as he was filling his plate. "Sorry about that hon, but you have to admit, that was pretty funny" she giggled.
Olridian just gave her a cold look and turned around, about ready to make off with his spoils, but Yanka had other ideas. She grabbed his arm and spun him around, a frown crossing her face "Ok King of Frosts, my bad. Now, tell me, what's his name and how far up your arse did he stick it `cause you got a real nasty temper on you at the moment."
Olridian glared at her and then quite suddenly broke down and started crying right there. A look of consternation crossed her face and she pointedly removed the plate from Olridian's fingers and put it down on the counter, she picked up a couple of pieces of toast and dragged Olridian out into the garden.
- Pelath moved with his breakfast to a quiet corner of the gardens and sat down behind a large T'laqui tree. It was huge measuring eight meters in diameter around the base and fifty four meters in height. He leaned up against it and tried to collect his thoughts.
Naturally the first thoughts through his mind were about Olridian. "Why did he have to be a mage? Why did he have to be so hot and why the hell do I have to feel the way I do about him?" Pelath sighed. Today seemed to be a day full of questions and lacking in answers.
When he had first become aware of the link with Olridian he was so embarrassed that he couldn't even look at him. The feelings of shock and confusion that pulsed along the link still burned in his mind. Maybe he should have tried to talk to him, tried to explain it all away, but the shock of everything that had happened and the speed with which it had all occurred made him panic.
Pelath leaned back against the tree, took a deep breath and let out a defeated sigh. He sipped his juice and took a bite out of his apple, slowly chewing and ruminating. He tried to clear his head of thoughts regarding Olridian. Today was a big day, the day when the dragons chose their keepers. He had always dreamed of flying a dragon but never believed it was possible. Until now that is. He was in the middle of one of his favorite flying fantasies when he heard a commotion coming from behind his tree.
Yanka dragged Olridian out into the gardens to a quiet area in front of an old T'laqui tree, one of the last left on Tar'El, the species having become an early victim of progress and innovation which saw most of them clear felled about a hundred and twenty years ago.
She sat him down beneath the shade of the trees enormous canopy of leaves. He was still crying but his sobbing had quietened. She pulled him against her, rested his head on her shoulder and started to rock him, whispering words of consolation. She looked down at his face and saw how dejected and empty he looked. She brushed back his fringe from his eyes and the hopelessness in his empty gaze almost broke her heart.
"What's wrong hon? You want to talk about it yet?" He looked up at her seeming not to realize where he was or who she was until finally, recognition dawned on his face. "Shit, I'm sorry Yan, everything just sort of came to a head and I couldn't stop myself".
"So you want to tell me what's wrong?" Olridian sighed "It's nothing really..."
"Like hell its nothing! You just had a freaking nervous breakdown there and all over my good shirt too I might add. Either you tell me now or I tickle it out of you!" Her threat hanging ominously in the warm summer air.
When he didn't reply immediately she jabbed him a couple of times in the kidneys and stomach, causing him to squirm and giggle. The mirth however did not quite make it to his eyes, they still had that hollow, distant, empty look to them but at least he giggled.
Olridian quietened down and then sighed. "Ok, I'll tell you but its stupid..." he went on to tell her about Pelath. The first time they met, how Olridian had almost melted on the spot looking into those depthless golden wells that he had for eyes, how just the sight of him over the last few days drove him to distraction, how he when he went to sleep at night his last thought would be about Pelath, his dreams filled with him and his first waking thought would be Pelath, how he had been scared to talk or make friends with him because he may not have been able to control himself, how he had seen him naked in the shower that morning and everything that he had felt. He told her everything seemingly unable to stop the flood of words that poured forth from his mouth once he had started. When he got to the part about watching Pelath this morning as he practiced, Yanka interrupted him. "I didn't know you were a mage. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Neither did I until this morning. I was just standing there watching him and suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I sensed the power trickling forth from him and then I get this tingly sensation seeping from me and heading towards him. The next thing I know I'm inside his head, feeling everything he did, seeing everything he did and remembering everything the way he did, but you have to let me finish the story..." He told her everything he saw and felt while he was linked and what happened afterwards. "What hurt the most was that I couldn't tell him how I really felt. He broke the link before I could really show him what I felt about him. When I felt the emotions he felt for me wash over me I was shocked and a little confused as to why, but then he broke the link and I couldn't show how much he meant to me. I went to talk to him, to try and sort all of this out `cause I was so confused. I have never felt this way about anybody before Yan. But before I could get to him he ran off without even letting me explain. He wouldn't even let me explain..." his voice trailed off as a new flood of tears threatened to overwhelm him. Just then they heard a twig snap and both of them swung their necks around in the direction the noise came from.
Pelath heard the sound of someone crying coming from behind him. "Great, just what I need while I'm trying to eat breakfast" he thought to himself. He was about ready to get up but something made him hesitate.
He heard someone ask the person a question, followed buy silence and then giggles. He listened carefully and heard the reply of a very familiar voice. No force on the planet could move him from his spot now. It was Olridian.
Why had he been crying? The answer came soon enough. Pelath listened to the tale that unfolded and was moved more than he ever thought he could be. He couldn't believe what he was hearing, the confession stealing his breath with its depth of feeling. He was rooted to the spot listening to Olridian's story. He was trying to place the voice of Olridian's confidant and listen to the conversation at the same time. When she interrupted him part way through Pelath realized who she was. It was that Yan something chick who always hung around him.
Pelath had assumed that she was his girlfriend when he first saw them together, which was another reason why he was so cut up after the incident this morning.
When Olridian confessed that he didn't know that he was a mage until this morning Pelath was a little surprised, but it was hardly unreasonable seeing as you normally have to be around a mage whose powers are aspected before your powers are unveiled.
Pelath stopped musing and concentrated on what Olridian was saying. When Olridian finished up he was in tears, the final sentence tearing his heart to shreds, so filled with sorrow and hopelessness. He realized what a mongrel he had been.
He had panicked and had taken the cowards way out and ran. He had to make this right, if that was possible now. He stood up and walked around the tree stepping on a twig as he did so.
Olridian looked up to see Pelath standing there. There were tears in his eyes. Had he heard everything? Deep inside Olridian hoped so. This could make everything so much easier.
He couldn't help notice that Pelath was still topless. His eyes scanning the broad flat expanse of Pelath's bronzed torso, perfect abs and pert little nipples. Olridian eyes glazed over as he fantasised about all the things he could lick off that perfect body.
Yanka saw the glazed expression on Olridian's face and realized that she would have to take charge of this little interaction. "How long have you been standing there listening to our PRIVATE conversation?" Pelath glanced down at her as if he had just noticed that she was there, before turning his attention back towards Olridian.
"I... I heard everything... and I need... I need to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't give you a chance to talk. I couldn't. It... it was just too hard to face you, after... what happened this morning." Tears streaming down his face.
He was going out on a limb here. He didn't know how heart broken Olridian was but he was willing to try anything that might win him over. He dropped down behind them and revealed his own story. The first time he had met Olridian and the greeting that had left his knees feeling like jelly, how he tried to be everywhere Olridian was just so that he could see him, how he had first seen him in the shower this morning and the feelings it had caused, and then how he had panicked this morning and run away and the aftermath that followed in the bedroom.
"Olridian I need you to know that... that I have never felt this way about anybody before, you fill my every thought and I think... I think I might be in love with you. No scratch that I am in love with you." Pelath hung his head morosely.
Who knew confessing could take so much out of you. There was a long moment of silence as both Olridian and Pelath ordered their chaotic thoughts into some type of pattern. The silence however was broken as Yanka cleared her throat.
"This is all very nice boys but aren't we forgetting something? They both looked up with a questioning look across their faces, they looked so similar Yanka started to chuckle. "What would that be?" Pelath asked.
"You still haven't introduced yourself to me. We have yet to meet." Pelath looked confused then realized, etiquette and custom decreed that he greet her formally or risk mortally offending her and as he was male he had to instigate the greeting.
"Of course, my humblest apologies. My mother would be most angry if she knew how rude I was." He extended his hands forward palms open and facing forward, "Greetings, I am called Pelath Udanavore, House Udanavore, City of Aletium. It is my pleasure to greet you." Yanka looked Pelath up and down with an unreadable look then opened her palms facing outward placing her hands palm to palm with his, their fingers clasping. "Greetings Pelath Udanavore, House Udanavore. I am called Yanka D'enatha, Family D'enatha, from the town of Eked Elimon, north of the city of Anendioran, in the Chimoyan Territories. It is my pleasure to accept you welcome, and yes, as you may have guessed, me and Olridian are related, he's my younger brother, by about seven minutes. The acceptance of your welcome is conditional however on one thing."
"And what would that be?" Pelath asked.
"If you ever hurt my brother like that again I'm gonna pummel you into mush." She smiled sweetly, "Now that we have all that cleared up I'll leave the two of you to talk. Don't take too long however because its ten to eight, selection begins at eight sharp and we still have to get to the hall.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tissue wrapped packet and fished out a piece of toast from it. She threw one of the pieces of toast to Olridian. "Here, you should eat something first and you..." she said pointing to Pelath "should put some clothes on, otherwise no body will be able to concentrate properly" With that she bent down and kissed Olridian on the cheek, then she walked up to Pelath and did the same. Pelath blushed, "Thank you but what was that for?"
She looked down at Olridian and then looked back at Pelath. "What you just did took a lot of guts honey, a lot of guts. That's to thank you for staying and talking when you could have just run away." With that she walked away, munching on her slice of toast.
End of Chapter 3