The Captain
Kaelyb “Teiddo” Reshlen
Teiddo, as a young girl, had watched as her twin brother Kaelyb had enlisted in the great Immaculate Army. She wanted nothing more than to enlist along side him, but the only occupation a woman could hold in the army was botanist or healer and Teiddo had an aptitude for neither.
Luckily for Teiddo, however, the Reshlen family was a very influential and powerful family, and they actually lived in the court, so Teiddo could continue to see and live with her brother, who trained her in secret, along with the help of the family’s man-at-arms.
As much as Teiddo wanted a chance to show the world that women could be just as tough as men, she never wanted her opportunity in the fashion that she got it. Kaelyb had almost finished the first half of his training and was just about to take the test to get into the officers’ academy when it happened. ‘It’ was a quick-striking plague that cut down fully half of the nobility before the healers found a way to stop it. Kaelyb was one of them.
Teiddo, always very much her father’s daughter, went to speak with him after it had happened. She found him in his study, bent over his desk, a book open, but he wasn’t reading it. “He was going to be great,” her father whispered as she stepped up beside him and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “He had the makings of a great leader… He could have been a commander,” he looked up at his daughter with teary eyes. Teiddo and Kaelyb were his only children.
“He still could be,” Teiddo said softly, her own eyes dry, she couldn’t cry for her brother, she felt that if she started, she’d never stop, so she refused to start.
“What?” her father asked, confusion evident all over his face.
“Tell the court that it was your daughter that fell ill and died, Kaelyb didn’t get sick until after they’d sent everyone home so they could deal with this. I’ll take Kaelyb’s place.” Her father looked skeptic, “I can do this, father, Kaelyb and Joen have been training me, I’m just as good as Kaelyb—I was beating him more than half of the time when we fought!” Teiddo let her desperation show in her eyes, “Please father, you know I can’t be like the other court girls… last man who tried to woo me, I broke his nose! Fighting’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at…”
“But if you’re caught…” he protested.
“I’ll be killed, I know. So I won’t be caught. You know that Kaelyb and I are enough alike that if I bind my breasts no one will be able to tell the difference between the two of us.”
“That may have been true years ago, but not anymore… Kaelyb’s voice has changed; it’s getting deeper now… not much, but enough that your voice is too high.”
Teiddo pondered on this for just a few moments, before stating, “I have an idea. If I can fix it, so that they won’t notice that, will you let me take Kaelyb’s place?”
Teiddo’s father was silent for a long time as he weighed this, on one hand, there was his sorrow for loosing his son, and his unwillingness to loose his daughter as well. On the other, he wanted nothing more than to make his daughter happy, and he knew that he could not do that unless he let her go ahead with her plans. Finally he sighed, “Yes. If you can overcome that to my satisfaction, then I will let you go.”
Teiddo smiled grimly, hugged her father, and then ran off. Her father shook his head sadly.
.....
Teiddo faced the Reshlen’s man-at-arms Joen with her hands on her hips and her best friend Whe at her side. Teiddo had called her here as Kaelyb under the pretence of explaining that ‘Teiddo’ was dead, but in actuality, Teiddo had called her because she was a healer apprentice and what she was doing would require a healer to make sure all went well.
“You want me to what?” Joen asked for what felt like the hundredth time.
Teiddo sighed in exasperation, “I need you to press on my neck with a staff or something until I pass out, and then Whe will make sure that it heals so that my voice is gravelly and not-feminine when I wake up.”
“What if I kill you?” he demanded.
“I trust you,” Teiddo said simply. “And if it makes you feel any better, Whe can let you know if you’re going to kill me, right Whe?”
Whe nodded, she had protested as much as Joen, but Teiddo had eventually won her over, the girl could be very persuasive when she wanted to be, and Teiddo had never wanted anything as much as she’d wanted this.
Teiddo laid a hand gently on Joen’s elbow, “Please Joen, you know how much I want this, and there’s no one else I can trust to do this. There’s no one else I would trust to do this,” she added vehemently.
Joen wavered, “All right,” he finally grumbled. He knew even more than her father how much she wanted this, “you’re going to be the death of me, you know?” he complained as he lifted his spear from the weapons rack behind him.
The man-at-arms glanced over at Whe, “You ready, girl?”
Whe nodded, concentration written on ever line of her face, “Yes sir.”
Joen swallowed heavily, took a fresh grip on his spear, holding it across his chest, parallel to the ground with a large enough gap to hold it comfortably level with his chin with arms bent at the elbows and held outwards.
With a deep breath and swallow Joen lunged, catching Teiddo just under the chin and pressing her up against the wall of his office. Teiddo had to remind herself several times not to struggle, and that she’d asked Joen to do this, but it was hard, especially as she started to get dizzy from lack of air and the need to breathe seemed to overwhelm everything else.
Finally, the blackness slipped over her and Teiddo felt herself slipping to the floor.
.....
When Teiddo woke up she found both Joen and Whe looking anxiously down at her. “Did it work?” she asked, then put a hand to her throat in surprise at the gravelly sound that issued from it. She coughed experimentally, it felt almost like that time she’d had strep throat when she was twelve, but she knew that this time it would be permanent.
Whe looked cross, “Yes, it worked, and it’s permanent, if there’s a healer out there that can fix that, then he’s powerful indeed.”
Teiddo smiled weakly, climbing to her feet, “That’s okay Whe, if I ever needed to change it back I’d be dead anyway.”
Whe paled slightly, “You’re sure you want to do this? You could go on being Teiddo and we could say that you got that from the plague.”
Teiddo smiled slightly, “I’m sure Whe. And I was going to say that I got it from the plague anyway.”
Whe frowned, worry evident on her face, “I have to get back to my Master, but if you ever need me…”
Teiddo smiled, “I know. And the same goes for you.” Whe nodded, then hugged Teiddo briefly and ran out of the room.
Joen put an arm around her shoulders and Teiddo could have sworn that she could see tears in his eyes. “Well, we’d best get you ready to go back to the academy.”
Teiddo frowned, “It should still be weeks before they call us back to school.”
“And you think that you’re just going to waltz in there with no preparation and expect them to believe that you’re Kaelyb?”
Teiddo frowned further, “I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” she admitted quietly.
Joen raised an eyebrow, “I’d noticed. Now, we’re going to go through all of your new teachers and all of your brothers friends until you’ve got them all memorized… I trust you know your brother well enough that you know how’d he’d react in most situations, but I don’t know how much he’d told you about his friends.”
“He’s told me quite a lot,” Teiddo said, “in fact, I think he was trying to set me up with one of his friends…”
Joen shook his head, “Well, we’ll start from the beginning anyway. I’ll bet that Kaelyb was telling you the stories that you’d enjoy, and not all of what happened… that he told me.”
.....
And thus began Teiddo’s grueling three week training session. Joen hammered Kaelyb’s entire schooling experience into her, good and bad, as well as working on her fighting abilities. All the while her father was teaching her about court etiquette. She knew all this from before, but she’d never learned it from a boy’s perspective. This was where she struggled the most, because she’d learned about the court ladies in much the same way that she was learning about Kaelyb’s life, and she’d always trained physically the same way, but with the etiquette she not only had to learn the etiquette, she had to unlearn all she’d learned before.
By the end of it all, Teiddo felt that she was tired enough and looked quite haggard enough to be a grief-stricken young man recovering from a plague. When Teiddo dropped into the chair across from Joen’s ‘desk’, ready for another day of intensive training she was surprised when he didn’t say anything, just sat there for several long minutes.
“The summons to return to school arrived today,” Joen said quietly.
Teiddo swallowed heavily, “Already?”
Joen quirked an eyebrow in tired amusement, “And who was it three weeks ago saying that she still had weeks to go?”
Teiddo frowned, “I didn’t know how much I had to know…”
Joen smiled sadly, “Well, you better go get packing, they expect you for the evening meal.”
Teiddo swallowed heavily, nodded and trotted off.
…..
Teiddo continued to come home at night, and continued to consult Joen and her father about being Kaelyb, but more and more she was actually becoming Kaelyb. It had surprised and astonished her father one night to realize that his daughter actually answered faster to ‘Kaelyb’ than she did to ‘Teiddo’.
He decided to consult with Joen on this… disturbing realization.
Once he’d explained it to Joen however, he just nodded, “It’s natural,” he explained at her father’s surprised look. Then he sighed, “Look Kaelyb, sir, if she didn’t answer to Kaelyb she’d be dead. She’s good at this. She’ll be brilliant. She’s already top of her class in officer’s school. To be frank, I think she’s doing better than Kaelyb would have.”
Kaelyb Sr. nodded, “I just don’t know if I like the thought of my daughter changing so much…”
But Joen was shaking his head, “She hasn’t changed at all, sir, she’s always been like this. She just never had an outlet for it.”
Kaelyb Sr. wandered away shortly after that, he had much to think on.
.....
On graduation day Teiddo thought that she was more excited and anxious than any other officer-in-training there. She would graduate and be put under the supervision of another commanding officer so she could observe ‘how it was done’ and get some experience while there was still someone around to correct her mistakes.
So Teiddo was more surprised than anyone when her name was finally called. “Kaelyb Reshlen, CO of The Eastern Searcher.”
The ‘principal’ of the officer’s academy continued listing assignments, but Teiddo couldn’t hear him past the rushing in her ears.
After the ceremony Reibron, one of her closest friends grabbed her around the shoulders, “Congrats Kaelyb! Commanding Officer of your own ship! And right out of school!”
Teiddo turned her pale face towards the taller boy, “So you mean I actually heard him right? I’m supposed to command?”
Reibron smiled widely, “I know! Isn’t it great! You’re so lucky!”
Teiddo felt the overwhelming urge to sit down, and only by sheer will did she keep from doing so right where she was. “I think I’m going to throw up,” she mumbled.
Reibron gave her an odd look, but then her other friends had come up (including the alien, Sthaclot) and were congratulating her and there was nothing more to say.
.....
Teiddo never actually threw up, but that was more because she was kept to busy to, than because of any lack of desire on Teiddo’s part.
It was just over a week later when Teiddo first laid eyes on The Eastern Searcher. It was love at first sight. The engineer who’d built her was talking continuously about the capabilities of the ship, but Teiddo was only half paying attention. She walked slowly around the ship, taking in every aspect of her. She was the first of her type, an Investigator, and she was puny compared to the massive warships stationed around her, but in Teiddo’s eyes she was the best ship there.
Once she’d made a complete circle around the ship she walked up to the ship and reverently touched the shining hull. She was vaguely aware that the engineer was watching silently as she ran her hand gently over the ship before punching in the code that would open the hatch.
As soon as they were inside the engineer started talking again, but Teiddo detected a slightly different tone now. Before he’d been talking to her as if he expected her not to care about the beautiful ship, but now he was far more open as he pointed out all of her features.
When they came to the bridge the engineer again fell quiet and just watched as Teiddo walked up to the captain’s post and ran her fingertips lightly over the controls. Then she turned to the engineer, “She’s yours, isn’t she?”
The engineer blinked in surprise, then smiled, “Yeah…” he said softly, “she’s my baby,” the love practically oozed from his voice.
“What’s her name?” Teiddo asked.
“The Eastern Searcher,” the engineer promptly replied.
Teiddo shook her head, turning to look at the engineer, “That’s what the bureaucrats called her, what’s her name?”
When Teiddo saw the appreciation in the engineer’s eyes she knew that she’d just made a very good friend. “I call her Kitty,” he said proudly.
Teiddo smiled and nodded, “Hello Kitty,” she said softly, turning back to the control panel and running her hand along the sleek edge again, “I’m Teiddo, I’ll be your captain for the next while…”
“I thought your name was Kaelyb?” the engineer interjected.
Teiddo shrugged, “I’m Kaelyb Teiddo Reshlen, but I prefer to be called Teiddo.”
The engineer tilted his head to one side slightly, then held out his hand, “My name’s Ikhohy.”
Teiddo took the proffered hand and they shook, “It’s nice to meet you, Ikhohy.”
.....
It was another week after that before Teiddo actually got to meet her crew. But when she did, she was quite surprised at several of them.
There were eleven men in total, counting herself, but men was a loose term, two of them were actually women. There was Bwoig, the pilot; Uwaacciz, the linguist; Eskoikeef, the geologist; Ictabrigir, the historian; his brother Iaxohlecakoo, the warrior; Meis, a bureaucrat; Chewoozzee, the botanist and the three surprises. The engineer Ikhohy was to be part of her crew, as well as her best friend Whe, to be the healer. The biggest surprise however was that her alien friend, Sthaclot, was to be part of the crew as well.
Teiddo took a deep breath, her first address of the men… “My name is Kaelyb Reshlen, but I’d prefer it if you called me Teiddo, and I’m to be your captain,” she refrained from mentioning anything about her inexperience, “I received our orders today,” she said simply, “we’re going to be shipping out in two days. You have tomorrow to say goodbye to any loved ones and collect your things, I expect to leave early, so be here the night before or at 0600 hours.” She glanced over her crew again, “If you need me before then, I’ll be here. Dismissed.” The warrior saluted, everyone else just meandered off.
Whe remained behind however, and when everyone else had left she dropped into her captain’s chair. Whe climbed the three steps to sit on the arm of the chair, “How does it feel to be captain, Teiddo?”
Teiddo smiled wanly up at her friend, “Honestly? I feel overwhelmed. Like I’m going to puke at any moment. I don’t understand why they did this. I’m not even twenty yet.”
“You scare them,” commented Sthaclot, hovering by the door. “You’re too smart. You understand too much. Too many people like you. I rather think that they hope you’ll get yourself killed so they can say that you died nobly and there won’t be any protesting that you were killed.”
Teiddo regarded her strange friend silently for a moment, “I’m not all that well liked,” she murmured.
“That’s not true,” Whe said quietly from her side, “Lots of people like you. You know Ikhohy? The engineer?” Teiddo nodded, “he’s brilliant. His future was secure for life here. He designed and built the Investigator. Ever since it was announced that you were going to be commanding, he’s been lamenting the loss of his ‘baby’ to a wet-behind-the-ears idiot nobleman. Then he shows you the ship and he’s volunteering—demanding—to be the engineer of the crew and he’s smacking around anyone who says you’re not fit for this ship.”
Teiddo mumbled something negating her part in that.
Whe shook her head, Sthaclot spoke up again, “Ikhohy is a very opinionated young man, and he is not swayed easily, for all that he is only seventeen. If he thought that you could not take care of this ship, he wouldn’t be swayed from that unless he saw something very convincing.”
Teiddo was silent for a long moment, “He’s only one person,” she said finally.
Whe threw her hands up in exasperation, “It’s practically everyone Teiddo! The great majority of commanding officers treat the little people like me or Ikhohy as things as numbers to do what we’re told and die when we’re told, to stop when we’re told, to go when we’re told—not you. You treat us like people. When you ask people a question you actually listen when they answer. People appreciate that, even if you don’t notice. We know you’re special, even if you don’t.”
“You’re going to be someone,” Sthaclot added, “and that scares to Immaculates.”
“I’m not all that,” Teiddo whispered, “I’m just nineteen, I’m just like every other graduate, there’s nothing special about me.”
Whe shook her head, “You special, Teiddo,” she stated firmly, “in more ways than one.” Then, before Teiddo could protest, she left, Sthaclot going with her, leaving Teiddo alone with her thoughts.
….. Six Months Later …..
Teiddo raced through the closing hatch, Uwaacciz under one arm, Meis over the other shoulder, yelling into her com-link, “Get us the hell out of here!”
Really, she wouldn’t use such language normally, but she was loosing blood at such an alarming rate that she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to stagger back to the bridge, and she wasn’t sure if Uwaacciz was breathing and Meis was unconscious and she really wanted to go to sleep. But Teiddo pushed that from her mind and concentrated on stumbling towards the bridge, or the healing bay, whichever her feet took her too.
She ended up staggering into Iaxohlecakoo’s chest. “Iaxo’,” she mumbled, barely coherent, “how nice to see you. I don’t suppose you could help me with these deadweights. Not pulling their weight again…” she coughed and felt the weight of the pair lifted from her. Still leaning against Iaxo’ she felt her hold on consciousness quickly slipping away. “G’night” she mumbled and promptly passed out.
.....
When she woke up in the medical bay her first thought was to wonder what she was doing there. Then she sat bolt upright, sending blankets flying and a stab of pain through her shoulder where she’d been wounded, hands grabbed her and prevented her from going anywhere else, “Calm down captain,” came the calm voice of Iaxo’ close to her ear.
“Uwaacciz—” she gasped, “Meis—”
“Are both alive and well and recuperating like good patients,” Iaxo’ informed her calmly, urging her to lye back down.
Teiddo resisted him, “Where are we?”
“Drifting in space,” Iaxo’ replied easily, pushing again on her good shoulder. “Don’t make me call Whe, you know she hates it when you’re a bad patient.”
Teiddo’s breathing and heart rate were slowly returning to normal, “You’re sure Meis and Uwaacciz are okay?”
“Yes I’m sure,” Teiddo could hear the tint of exasperation in the warrior’s voice, “Thought I don’t know why you insist on worrying about that petty bureaucrat.”
Teiddo lay back, a slight smile on her lips as she fell back asleep, mumbling some vague answer about duty.
…..
When Teiddo woke again Whe was above her, changing the bandage on her shoulder. “It’s about time,” Whe grumbled once she’d finished, “Ikhohy and Sthaclot are driving us all crazy.”
“Wha?” Teiddo groaned, pushing herself up into a sitting position.
Whe sighed, “You know that you’re the only one Sthaclot likes on this ship, and it only tolerates the rest of us because its stuck with us. You’ve been out for days and its all testy with worry.”
Teiddo nodded, that did sound like the alien, “And Ikhohy?”
Whe shook her head, “I don’t know how you control that monster, he’s got more energy than anyone I’ve ever seen. I almost siphoned some of it off to use on you three just to get him to calm down.”
Teiddo cocked her head, “You can do that?”
Whe nodded, “I don’t like to, because it seems counterproductive to my vows, but I can.”
Teiddo smiled slightly and shook her head, “Well, what’s he been doing?”
It was Whe’s turn to shake her head, “He’s been inventing all over the place, there are live wires just sticking out of panels, the bridge is a mess of wires, he’s barely stopping to eat and sleep.”
Teiddo compressed her lips, then glanced at her shoulder, “You have a sling for this or do I just wear it as-is?”
Just a few minutes later, armed with a sling and a long rest Teiddo was again pacing the halls of her beloved ship. She ran her hand along the wall, smiling slightly, even though she’d been unconscious for most of the time she’d been in the medical bay, she still missed the ship.
Then she walked into the bridge.
After a few moments of standing in the doorway, mouth flapping like a fish, watching Ikhohy fiddle with the wires spread all over the place, Teiddo finally got enough air into her lungs to exclaim, “What are you doing to my ship?”
Ikhohy’s head whirled around so fast that Teiddo could have sworn that he’d given himself whip-lash, “Teiddo!” he exclaimed, bounding out of the wiry mess and onto the relatively solid ground of the doorway.
Teiddo didn’t give him her usual friendly greeting, instead she pursed her lips and stared at the engineer, “What is this? Kitty’s not scheduled for any maintenance, and you’re supposed to clear any upgrades you’re going to do with me before you do them.”
Ikhohy’s face twisted into something similar to a dejected puppy, “But you weren’t awake to ask, and I couldn’t just not do anything…”
“So you tore apart the entire bridge and apparently a great deal of the rest of the ship?”
Ikhohy blinked and suddenly looked around, his mouth forming an ‘o’ of surprise. “I—I didn’t…” he bit his lip, “I didn’t mean to… I was…” he ducked his head nervously, “I was worried,” he whispered, “about you.” Then he coughed and said more loudly, “I mean, Kitty likes you, and what would she do without you?”
Teiddo raised her eyebrow with a slight smile, “What’s she going to do all torn up?”
“I’ll fix her,” Ikhohy said instantly, “I’m just about done anyway.”
“Well, clean her up. You can finish what you’re doing, but I don’t want all her guts hanging out while you’re doing it. And I want you to tell me what you were doing to her.”
“Yes sir!” Ikhohy said with a mock salute.
Teiddo shoved him towards the bridge with her boot applied to his rear, “Impudent rat,” she grumbled playful.
“Old codger,” Ikhohy shot back before diving into the wires, quickly but carefully placing them back into their casings and bolting the floor panels back down. Teiddo watched him for a few more minutes before she went off to find the rest of her crew.
…..
The rest of her crew was easily reassured of her well being, as they hadn’t been too worried about her in the first place. Teiddo realized with a satisfied but slightly worried smile, that they trusted her. Well, most of them. Eskoikeef, the geologist, still didn’t trust her, and Bwoig, the pilot, didn’t seem to know what to make of her, but everyone else seemed to trust in her abilities. Teiddo wondered if they’d still think that once they found out that she was a girl.
Teiddo pushed the thought out of her mind, they wouldn’t find out that she was a girl. She was being careful. She wasn’t giving anything away.
Teiddo found Sthaclot and Iaxo’ in the room they’d dubbed the ‘training room’. It was actually supposed to be a cargo bay, but Teiddo had had Ikhohy convert it into a training room so she could stay in shape while they were in space. Iaxo’ and Sthaclot, both fighters as well, were often seen there too. Though much more infrequently than these three, most of the others visited this room every once in a while as well. You never knew when you’d need to be in shape. Like that incident earlier in the week had demonstrated.
Teiddo absentmindedly rubbed her shoulder as she watched the two fighters spar. Sthaclot was a different kind of opponent than Iaxo’ was used to, but the human had adjusted quickly after the first few defeats.
Then Iaxo’ caught sight of Teiddo, “Captain!” he exclaimed. Sthaclot turned to look at the doorway.
Teiddo waved and ambled into the training room. “You shouldn’t let your surroundings distract you when you’re training,” she commented.
Iaxo’ gave Teiddo an exasperated look and she grinned back.
They talked of things of no consequence for some time, until the pair of them were sufficiently convinced that she was perfectly fine, and as soon as Whe got off her case about her shoulder she’d be back training with them.
…..
Teiddo made her way back to the bridge, purposefully, but in no particular hurry.
In the time it had taken Teiddo to circulate the ship, Ikhohy had put the bridge back together, and was now working quietly at the captain’s controls, his mess considerably more contained.
Teiddo, however, didn’t approach the engineer, instead she walked over to Bwoig, the ship’s pilot.
“Captain,” he greeted her, making a final note on the screen he was looking at, before turning to face her.
“You know where our next stop is?”
Bwoig looked insulted, “Of course Captain.”
Teiddo smirked softly, “How soon can we be there?”
Bwoig flipped the screen he was reading to a star chart. “Okay… we’re here,” he pointed, “we’re going… here, and there’s this big patch of ‘interference’ here that we’ll have to go around so… ten hours, at least.”
Teiddo nodded, “Take us there.”
…..
It was a considerably more tired Teiddo that stood at the helm eleven hours later. She knew that she should be sleeping, but as the captain it was her job to be at the helm when they came into a new planet.
Surprisingly, most of the crew was here as well, Bwoig and Ikhohy were in their customary positions, Bwoig piloting and Ikhohy at the secondary controls for radio, scanning etc.
Uwaacciz and Meis usually joined her, but they were unconscious and Whe was still watching over them. However everyone else had joined them on the bridge, for a reason that Teiddo couldn’t fathom. Ictabrigir stood behind Bwoig, staring intently at the screen displaying the planet they were to land on. Eskoikeef was leaning against the wall, just inside the door, arms crossed over his chest, with a frown plastered on his face, Chewoozzee stood beside him, looking less hostile, but not exactly friendly. Iaxo’ and Sthaclot stood beside and slightly behind Teiddo, flanking her.
She almost had the feeling that they were trying to protect her, but that was absolutely ridiculous.
“I’m not getting any radio signals,” Ikhohy said, “but the bioscanner is picking up humanoid life forms, along with something significantly bigger, but I can’t tell what it is.”
Chewoozzee walked over to the engineer and leaned over his shoulder, “they look sort of like lizards, maybe.”
”Giant lizards? Wonderful. Wonder if the humanoids or lizards are in charge,” Teiddo mumbled, then straightened her uniform as best she could with only one hand, straightened her back and said commandingly, “Take us down nearby.”
…..
Teiddo had to repress her gasp of surprise as she stepped toward the party that had appeared soon after they’d landed. They weren’t giant lizards. They were dragons.
“Dragons…” Ictabrigir murmured, “they’re the things of legends in so many cultures… to think… they’re real…”
Iaxo’ grunted skeptically.
“Hush,” Teiddo murmured just before the two parties converged, Teiddo switched to political most instantly, she’d learned how to do this in theory at officers’ school and in practice by watching Meis work. She only hoped they spoke a similar language.
“Greetings,” she said slowly, “we’re here to arrange an alliance between our two planets if it is beneficial to our nations.”
The two humans looked confused, and conversed between each other in a language that Teiddo couldn’t understand, “Do either of you understand what they’re saying?” Teiddo murmured.
“Not a clue,” Ictabrigir admitted.
“Dammit,” Teiddo murmured. “Of all the times for Uwaacciz to be out of action… doesn’t he know how essential he is?” Ictabrigir and Iaxo’ took no notice of Teiddo’s irritated ramblings. They both knew that she was stressed and worried and so any irrational complaints could be excused. She didn’t do it often enough for it to get annoying anyway.
I’m afraid our riders cannot understand your language, only Teiddo’s intense training prevented her from betraying her surprise, but it was a near thing. So, woman-who-acts-like-a-man, we dragons shall translate.
Teiddo’s brain turned off. She had no idea how, but this dragon knew. He knew. Oh gods. What was she going to do—
I will not tell anyone. We will not tell anyone, if it is so important.
It is, Teiddo thought fervently, oh god it is.
The dragon nodded, I will not tell anyone. If you will follow us…?
Teiddo nodded, “Bwoig?”
Her com-link buzzed to life, “Here Captain.”
“We’re going to go talk to their leader. You guys stay here.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“We’re what?” Ictabrigir asked, confused, “When did we decide that? I thought we couldn’t communicate.”
“The dragon and I arranged it,” Teiddo said simply, and started forward.
Ictabrigir laughed tersely, “Of course, she and the dragon, I should have known.”
Iaxo’ just shook his head and followed his Captain.
…..
Teiddo wondered ironically, how she'd gotten herself into this. She'd only intended to make an alliance, and now she was getting a dragon for herself! They'd be on this planet for quite some time, as Ikhohy needed time to adapt the ship for the dragons.
.....
The other dragon, who called himself a rayant moon-starry, did not follow in his clutchmates' footsteps of not bonding. He trotted up to Teiddo confidently, and told her his name. I'm Chaston, Teiddo. Come on, can wego eat? He added a little impatiently.
Teiddo agreed, and they headed to the kitchens as another of Antliath's eggs cracked.
Teiddo has bonded Rayant Moon-Starry Chaston at Darkling Dawn