Where the Line Is

Writers: Devin, Iluva
Date Posted: 26th October 2026

Characters: M'sar, A'garyn
Description: M'sar confronts A'garyn about making his dragon chase too soon.
Location: Dragonsfall Weyr
Date: month 5, day 23 of Turn 13
Notes: Mentioned: K'valas, M'thos
Swearing

A'garyn

M'sar was headed to lunch when he spotted A'garyn, and his anger flared as he remembered what had happened the other day. Marching up to the weyrling, he growled, "What the fuck were you thinking?"

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Since the flight, there had been little inclination to talk to anyone outside of duties and necessity. Interactions were brief, bare-bones, and that was still more than A'garyn cared to indulge. But he got through them without issue, without the ragged snarl leaving his throat, and that was something. A few more days, and maybe things would feel somewhat normal. Whatever sort of normal could exist after that, with all that had happened and all he'd chosen to do still following him like a diseased, starving canine. The guilt was invasive, unstoppable. Not that he expected it to leave him be. But he'd gotten through the previous day and half of this one with nothing worse than the weight.

Talarcheth was in better spirits now that they could join drills again. For someone so harsh with others, his willingness to forgive A'garyn for forcing him to chase Sazikoth relentlessly across the sky struck his rider deep in the chest. Mostly it was irritating now. His wings still carried stiffness, but the ache in his shoulders could exist alongside the movement of flight again, and truthfully, being in the air had helped them both. A'garyn watched his dragon take to the heights almost without a hitch, just a slight twinge along their backs that neither of them cared to notice.

Now, midday sun falling hot on the bowl, he stood winding the riding straps up from hand to elbow in slow, methodical passes until it was one solid coil. The rhythm anchored him and kept everything else at bay. It was almost enough to keep him from thinking about _that_ brownrider again.

And right then, hollering and stalking up to him like a scalded wherry, M'sar showed up.

The coil stilled in A'garyn's hand for half a heartbeat, grip tightening at the intrusion, at the question-- too near the thing he'd been trying not to look at. The brat was the last person he was going to talk to. His gaze lifted just enough to acknowledge him, a cool, assessing flick of dark eyes. Then he slung the leather over his shoulder and started across the bowl.

M'sar followed. "How could you _do_ that to him? Makin' him chase before he was ready? You _hurt_ him."

A'garyn's long stride flowed even and unbroken, sure movements over packed earth. There was only the slightest adjustment of the straps. His jaw ached. He didn't look back at M'sar. If this brownrider thought he’d been unfriendly before, unwilling to engage, he'd find even less to hold onto. “Well, you'd know all about that,” he said, his eyes cast up to where Talarcheth lay in the sun. “Go away, M'sar.”

Even months later, the guilt was still sharp and M'sar clenched his fists. "I _do_ know all about it. But I wasn't trying to hurt him. I wasn't tryin' to make him do something he was way too young for. I want him to chase, I want it so bad, and he's full grown and all and I _still_ wouldn't make him." He shook his head. "It don't even make sense. You know what would've happened if you'd won, right?"

"Spare me the self-righteous bullshit. You had the same talks about risk and boundaries as everyone else and you _were_ trying to do something he was too young for. Guess I'm a slow learner in that regard." A'garyn allowed, his flat tone slick with an undercurrent of venom. “I should have found some naive kid to indulge with when mine was barely a month old, huh?"

Nothing could delay the onslaught of yet another headache, but slowing to a stop at M'sar's last question hardly helped. A'garyn turned and took a slow step back toward him.

"Don't you know?" A dark brow arched. "The fuck am I saying-- of course you don't. Why is it you, M'sar, of all people, feel entitled to demand anything from me? I'll tell you. You go around whining and bragging about fucking like you're the one who invented it, but you don't even know what you're looking at.” On a level he didn't want to admit, he even pitied M'sar. Not knowing what it meant to need another person all the way to the bone, to be willing to die trying to protect them, merited some measure of sadness. But it sat far removed from right now.

“I know exactly what would have happened and it would have been _glorious_. He's the only one I want to chase. He's the _only_ one I'd force Talarcheth into doing that for.”

M'sar was so shocked he stopped and his mouth dropped open. "You have a thing for _K'valas_?!?" Then he remembered before they'd Impressed, the way Aegaryn and Kavalas were always together, always close but carefully not touching. "Flaming shit, you're _together_? How the feck did I miss that?" In retrospect it was so obvious, but he'd overlooked it the way so many holders overlooked a relationship they weren't expecting.

A'garyn made a low noise of exasperation. “Yeah, and normally nothing gets by you,” he said, rolling his eyes. He looked M'sar over, disdain curling back into place, strong enough to override his days of exasperation with himself as he shifted the leather into a better position. Yet there was a quiet thrill in saying it, in actually declaring it, when hiding had once been the only safe option, and that had nothing to do with M'sar. More importantly, things were okay between him and Kav, and the rest he could deal with as it came.

Shit like this, apparently.

}:He's annoying and stupid.:{ Talarcheth grumbled. }:Just get rid of him.:{

For once, they were on the same page. A’garyn had already turned to go. “You didn't think it might mean something, that I'd make him chase?” He didn't wait for an answer, shaking his head. “What I did to him is mine to answer for. What happened is between me, him, and K'valas. Not you." He glanced back just once, just long enough to show there was nothing but ice in his expression. “And if I hear this from anyone else before we want to, I'll know exactly where it came from. Grow up. And get out of my face.”

M'sar wanted to laugh. K'valas and A'garyn? It was too good! He also wanted to fight, because that's what he was best at, aside from sex. But there was another emotion trying to break the surface, and he started to squash it out of habit. But Mesarian was the one who'd needed to suppress those softer feelings. M'sar didn't. Even if it was stupid A'garyn, he could . . . not understand, exactly, but he could see the desperate attempt to send Talarcheth after Sazikoth in a different light. "Ain't never been with someone like that," he lied. "But that must be . . . tough."

Still walking, the brownrider still behind him, A'garyn's glare bore into the ground. His patience with M'sar was thin to begin with, but the last thing he needed was to do something else he'd regret.

And yet, the truth of it lingered, growing heavier. Kav might end up spending every flight with someone else, and the debacle he'd caused, how fresh it still was, the knowledge it would always be a possibility-- all of it slowly tightened his stomach to the point of nausea.

A growl built in his throat before he could gauge whether M'sar was grinning, or joking, or just being nosy. His stride didn't falter, but he felt a little off-kilter. He was tired of this, of someone always trying to pry answers or sympathy or commiseration. The last few days weighed on his steps the way the coiled leather on his shoulder never could, and he made himself put it all out of his mind. It didn't change anything, but it let him keep walking.

"Most things are tough," A'garyn pointed out, voice flat. “It is what it is.” As he reached the entrance to the lower caverns, he slowed, then stopped just short of going in, head pounding, not looking at the other rider.

“But someone shoving their nose in, trying to make something that isn't theirs make sense to _them_, only makes it harder. Why does it matter to you what I did? What anything means? I never want to talk to you, and this is _none_ of your business. We're not announcing anything, especially not to you.”

"Cause you _hurt_ him!" M'sar was surprised to hear his voice rising. "I saw him, huddled on the ground and shaking. Nazoth almost went to him, but Fianwyth showed up and I knew her and M'thos would take care of it." Nazoth had woken him, worried about Talarcheth. Still bleary with sleep, M'sar had looked down at Talarcheth curled in on himself, wings held awkwardly, and his heart had squeezed. "It matters cause I care. I _care_! We can't be who we were out there. We can't be selfish. We have to be better, for _them_!"

A'garyn sighed, closing his eyes with force. He didn’t open them again until he was certain he could speak without it coming out a snarl, until the rage stopped bleeding into his link with Talarcheth. “No one asked you to, M’sar. No one wants you to.”

He turned on his heel to face the brownrider one last time, knuckles gone white on the leather. His expression was a mask of cold, rigid rage. Beneath it sat the guilt, the image of Talarcheth trembling and unnerved that M'sar's words had dragged up unbidden, and the unwelcome, tangled fact that M'sar of all people had wanted to help. He had no place to put that. “Every second I'm awake I know I hurt him,” A'garyn said, the words quiet, heavy. “What the fuck is yelling at me like this going to change? Seems like that's more about you-- making _you_ feel better, more in control. Like you're not the selfish prick who’d fucked up long before I did.”

M'sar hated that A'garyn was right. His eyes blazed with anger and he clenched his fists as he fought the urge to hit something. He didn't want to get in a fight -- physically, at least, and definitely not while A'garyn was still a weyrling. Yelling at someone else was easier than wrestling with his own guilt yet again. "I know I fucked up, and I have to live with that, just like you do now. Guess we got more in common than I'd thought." The corner of his mouth twisted up in a smirk and he was on the edge of making a mean comment about A'garyn and K'valas, just to rile the bronzerider up more, just to feel like he was scoring points.

But instead M'sar closed his eyes and said, "I just . . . hated seeing him hurt like that."

A'garyn ignored the smirk and the quiet that followed it. The very idea of similarities between them was repugnant, yet another thing to turn his stomach. “You're not the only one. But your guilt is yours. Mine is mine.” He frowned at the way M'sar looked, like he was battling something inside rather than out for once. Maybe something had actually gotten through to him.

“Here's how this is going to go,” he instructed, quiet and even. “You're going to save the tirades for someone who gives a shit. Doubt you can, because that means listening when someone tells you where the line is, but you'll try. You're going to get out of my face. Or we're going to have a real problem.” He tilted his head. “And I don't think anyone wants a weyrling dragon who's already recovering to go into distress over a wingrider's conduct, do you?”

A'garyn wasn't about to stay and find out. In the back of his mind, Talarcheth still lingered-- annoyed and displeased and ready to fly down to get him-- and A'garyn insisted he stay where he was. Then he turned and walked past the cavern entrance, eyes riveted on stretch of cliffs where his dragon lay.

M'sar bit back a response. **Tell Talarcheth I'm sorry if I upset him.** The poor bronze had been through enough.

Last updated on the October 28th 2026

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Where the Line Is