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Haraket was busy. New captured dragons meant new Jousters, and new Jousters meant readying new pens, sourcing more meat, finding new dragon boys. All time consuming tasks that could not be put off for a later week, lest the new dragons go hungry and mean. Haraket was busy enough that it was a few days before he noticed he hadn’t seen Ari recently. At all. Ari had never been much for the company of the others working at the Dragon Compound, but he’d never avoided Haraket before.
Concerned, at lunchtime Haraket began wandering through the empty halls of dragon pens. There were fewer than there used to be, but still enough that there were many more empty than full. Ari sometimes retreated to one of them to mope, or less often, because he was distracted. A distracted Ari was more likely to wind up in one of the occupied pens, but Haraket wasn’t going to check there first. If Ari was merely distracted he’d pop up at dinner, excited, with a bunch of new ideas he wanted to tell Haraket about.
"Ari? You in here?" Haraket ducked into one of the pens and saw Ari sitting in the sands, cheerful and relaxed. In his lap was a blue-green shape, glinting in the light.
"Haraket?" Ari asked, puzzled, twisting up to look at him. "Is something wrong?"
"Are you okay?" Haraket asked, then paused, thoughtful. "That is a dragon, right?" The shape wiggled, yawned, and stretched out its wings.
Ari smiled like the rising sun over the Great Mother River. "Meet Kashet. He hatched earlier this morning. Isn't he a real beauty?" He scratched Kashet's head and the dragonet sighed blissfully.
"A dragon," Haraket repeated. "A baby dragon. How?” He reconsidered, than shook his head. However Ari had found a baby dragon, Haraket wasn’t sure he wanted to know just now. Or why the baby dragon wasn’t clawing his arm apart. At least Haraket didn’t think it had. “You could have warned me."
"Hatched from an egg,” Ari grinned proudly. “One of Rakom’s, you remember how she laid a clutch in the pens last season? I wanted to see if they were easier to tame from the egg.” He picked up Kashet and began bouncing him, tossing scraps of meat from a barrow nearby.
Haraket blinked, because of course that was where Ari had gotten the egg. Easier than trying to steal from a mother dragon, and with three dragons laying a clutch earlier in the year, Ari would have had plenty of chances to set aside an egg. Rakom hadn’t even been all that broody.
“And no, I didn’t say anything," Ari admitted easily. "I wasn’t sure it would work, and I didn't want you to think you needed to mention anything to the Commander."
And wasn't that Ari all over, thought Haraket fondly. Never wants to get his friends in trouble, regardless of what kind of scheme he’s head deep in. Outwardly, he grumbled, "do I need to find a dragon boy on next to no notice again? I must have combed through all the willing boys in the city already this week. They’re all too scared of the dragons, or lazy, or signed for the army already." Haraket swung himself down next to Ari, and reached out a hand for Kashet to investigate.
"A dragon boy?" Ari was genuinely startled. "Not at all. I'm going to raise Kashet myself. Dragon youngsters imprint on their mothers, and I had a theory it could work for a person, if they fed the dragon early enough. That wouldn’t work at all if he was being handled by a dragon boy."
"Of all the fool notions," said Haraket, shaking his head theatrically. "At least I don’t need to find a boy for you. Are you sure? You’ll be busy for years. It’s not even like it’d matter, with him dosed on tala.”
“No!” Ari sounded alarmed, almost jumping to his feet. “No tala. You know it makes them slow and stupid. If Kashet is used to me, he won’t need any.”
“I hope you’re right, my friend,” Haraket replied. It was clear Ari couldn’t be convinced otherwise. “How are you ever going to find a Jouster to ride him, if he’s kept off tala and only used to you?"
"I'll cross that bridge when I get there," Ari sighed. "Or ride him myself, come to that." Ari didn’t look pleased at the notion, but he clearly already hated the idea of trusting Kashet to some glory-hound Jouster.
"You'd hate being a Jouster, my friend," Haraket disagreed softly, settling himself more firmly into the sand. "You already love Kashet, don't you?"
Ari smiled helplessly, slipping Kashet another piece of meat. “He’s so beautiful, isn’t he?”
“He is,” Haraket agreed. "And of course I'll help. Now that you've fed him, you need to go clean yourself up. Or hadn't you noticed you have blood all down your shirt?"
"Oh," Ari said, shrugging. "I hadn't actually fed a dragon before. I’m sure I'll be less clumsy soon." The wheelbarrow was still half full, but Kashet had stopped eating the scraps that Ari was feeding him. Ari got up, setting down Kashet, who immediately curled up in the warm sand against Haraket’s knee. On his way out, he turned to look back at Haraket, a question in his eyes.
"I'll stay here with Kashet until you're back,” Haraket offered, slipping out of his sandals and setting them behind him. “I don’t need to go deal with the boys for another hour."
Haraket looked down at Kashet, running a finger down his back. His scales were a vivid green shading through turquoise to a darker blue, tinier than even the most delicate scales on an adult dragon. Haraket wondered if Kashet would keep the color when he was grown. Haraket had never seen a baby dragon before, and hoped that this experiment of Ari’s would succeed. He knew that Ari would never give up on Kashet now. Oblivious to the wider world, Kashet slept on in the warm sand.