A Sending of Dragons by Jane Yolen

temper will bum off up there in the
sky. He’s a bit put out, I think, that Sssasha was the great hero of the fight when he thought he should be,” she said, putting the medkit back in her pack. “Reminds me of a boy I once knew.” She smiled.
    â€œNot funny,” said Jakkin, but he couldn’t keep from smiling back at her. “However,
that’s
a dragon long overdue for some hard training.”
    â€œYou’re not exactly the picture of a trainer now.”
    He looked down at his shorts, the dirty remnants of his white trainer’s suit. They were patched and repatched, the earlier, crisper dams done by Akki, the later ones, his own coarse handiwork. “Well,” he admitted, “I guess I don’t
look
like one. But I still know training. And a certain amount of discipline is necessary, as today proves. If we’re all to survive, we have to find ways of working together.”
    Akki was silent and her thoughts blank.
    â€œFewmets, Akki, wasn’t that the first lesson we learned in the nursery? Isn’t that what our grandfathers learned when they were dumped on Austar?”
    Akki’s voice was very quiet. “I thought
you said the first and best lesson was
I fill my bag myself
” She touched his chest where the leather bag used to hang, the bag that signaled to all the world that he was a bonder, the bag he’d filled with gold enough to buy his freedom.
    â€œWe aren’t wearing bond bags anymore.”
    â€œNo, and we haven’t for some time, Jakkin.”
    â€œThen why are we arguing?” Jakkin asked. “We don’t have time for arguments. We’ve got to get away from this meadow. Now.”
    â€œNow, now, now. All of a sudden everything is
now
with you. And besides, we aren’t arguing, Jakkin. We’re discussing things, like sophisticated folk do.”
    â€œLike city folk?” asked Jakkin. “Is that what you learned the year you lived in the Rokk with the rebels?”
    â€œI learned to talk about things that matter with Golden and with Dr. Henkky,” Akki said. “I learned to talk out my feelings before they got so big . . . oh, never mind, Jakkin. How can you understand? You’d rather send to dragons.”
    â€œAkki, that’s not true.” But she had turned away. He picked up his sling and stood there, his mouth empty of words but his mind swirling and confused, and Akki, he was sure, heard it all.

7
    W ITHOUT SPEAKING TO each other, they walked the rim of the gorse meadow looking for a new path down the mountain. Their feet kicked up insects that chittered and flew away. Keeping pace with them were the four hatchlings, who trampled the purple ground cover with their massive feet.
    Sssasha kept checking the skies, though it wasn’t clear whether she was looking for more drakk or trying to find the sulking Sssargon. Unlike humans, dragons sent only what they wanted to send unless they were in the middle of a fight.
    Tri-ssskkette’s sendings kept breaking into jagged little markers of pain and, with the other two echoing her every mental whimper, it made concentration difficult for them
all. Jakkin tried sending calming thoughts to the triplet, but nothing seemed to work until Akki began a light show of raucous, bumpy colors that finally took the hatchling’s mind off her wounds.
    Jakkin turned to Akki and drew in a deep breath. “Thanks,” he whispered at last.
    Akki shrugged. “Some patients need a lot of sympathy and some need a lot of distracting.” She stopped for a moment, seemed to calculate, then added, “Dr. Henkky taught me that.”
    â€œShe’s a smart lady,” Jakkin said. It seemed to make peace between them and Jakkin smiled with relief.
    They continued to walk the meadow edge, but it was like looking over the rim of a bowl.
    â€œI don’t see any paths but the one we came up,” Akki said as they circled a second