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It was ironic, really – C’ross had spent the night after the Hatching throwing up and then finally passing out in bed with half his uniform still on, but for reasons having nothing to do with alcohol. He was pretty explicitly forbidden by the healers to even touch the stuff. Something about concussions and the possibility of exacerbating his condition.

Merceth, still seething and furious from being slapped down by a Watch bronze, had driven off all visitors. They were neither needed nor wanted. But morning came and C’ross did not rouse. The standard pre-dawn patrol came and went. Merceth flew it, but did so without his rider. If L’iv noticed the curious absence of riding straps on the dark hide, she made no comment.

Four hours on, four hours off. That was the rhythm of Warden’s Weyr. And a few hours after sunrise, when he was reasonably confident that she would be up and dressed and all those things that mattered to humans, a weary brown dragon flopped himself down in front of Jessan’s quarters. and angled his head to peer a dull grey eye through her window.

Good morning. I would like to make an appointment.

Merceth huffed and shuffled out of the way to allow Jessan to exit through the door. He kept his head low; for some reason eye contact, and keeping himself on a more or less even level with the mindhealer, seemed like the kind of thing that might make him less intimidating than normal.

Not that Merceth was very good at being not intimidating, because in practice it meant that Jessan was eye-to-eye with one good eye, one horrible scarred socket, and far, far more teeth than the majority of her patients.

Merceth, he responded to her question. Squadsecond Merceth, he amended after a moment. If C'ross was a Squadsecond, then Merceth got to be a Squadsecond too. It was only fair, and it sounded better than introducing himself with his color as a title. Unless she was colorblind, she could tell what he was. I have not been having a good few weeks. And considering that dragons could only clearly remember a few weeks of events at a time, that was saying something.

For once, Merceth would not have minded having his nose patted. Normally he was bristly and hostile and unpleasant to strangers, but...

Well, there was nothing like the possibility of one's own imminent death to make you want someone to comfort you.

I think things started to go downhill after Brakiheth died, Merceth began, slow and thoughtful, although I can't remember that far back. But everything's been too complicated since then. Were you at the Hatching?

Politics did not even enter into Merceth’s mental equation. Whenever a dragon died, that was bad. When a queen died, it was doubly bad. Issues of power and who took over after she died and hows and whys and what nows, those were all human questions. But Warden’s had been missing a queen for too long, and that wasn’t right. It wasn’t the way that dragons ought to function. Especially not with eggs lying lonely on the sands.

No wonder they hadn’t been quite right.

…Yes. He’s mine. There was a flicker of yellow in the unrelenting grey, as Merceth prodded hesitantly at the bond. I would have brought him, but he is still sick. I don’t think the healers did a good job of fixing him. And if something happens to him, I go too. There was still something wrong with C’ross’ head, and Merceth didn’t like it. It was all full of dark, even when he was awake, and it hurt in a sick dizzy way, like C’ross was actively blocking his dragon out of his thoughts. I don’t like it at all.

Merceth closed his good eye and crooned in quiet satisfaction at the touch on his muzzle. It was good to have someone on his side, at least.

He wasn’t going to shoot the little screaming one, the brown stated, with perhaps unnecessary force behind the words. And he won’t say anything because he won’t go against M’onk, and I don’t understand why. M’onk told him to shoot the first one, the one that tried to kill a Candidate. And he did because he didn’t know what else to do – he thought it would be better to do it before the little one Impressed, so that then only the gray would have to die.

He shifted uncomfortably, coiling himself in a little closer to Jessan. This was difficult to discuss. Even for Merceth. I think M’onk has gone mad. But you have to understand – to C’ross, he is still the man who founded the Watch. The man who brought law and justice to Pern.

Merceth’s voice was heavy. Yes, but... People change. Sometimes people go mad. Half the prisoners on Murderer’s Row were people with ordinary lives once, until something happened to change them. I don’t understand why C’ross won’t accept that good men can go mad too.

It was that pesky shades of grey thing – if the founder of the Watch was corrupt, then the entire organization was suspect at heart. And if the entire organization was suspect, then there was no higher authority left to which C’ross could appeal. To a man who’d built most of his life on justice, it was a possibility too frightening to contemplate. And so he didn’t.

The continued scratching made him relax, at least, some of the tension going out of his coiled body. I don’t know what he will do. But he worries me. He believes what they say – that he is a monster with innocent blood on him. I worry that he will choose not to continue, in the same way that Kaelyandra did. And if he does... I don’t get a choice.

Merceth thrummed quietly, pressing his muzzle against Jessan as she hugged him. The yellow and grey had mostly faded from his good eye as he calmed under her steady touch. He was still weary, and still worried... But the mindhealer was good at her job. She would help mend things, he was certain.

He nudged at C’ross again through the bond, and again got little more than a wave of darkness and the burst of mental static that indicated his rider was in no mood for a talk.

He is not much fit for company. But talking might do him some good. He won’t speak to me at all – we argued last night, while he was sick, and now he is too quiet.

You should put a shirt on, Merceth informed C’ross helpfully, because I am bringing a pretty lady to see you. Try not to embarrass us.

Merceth: master of all things tactful.

He shifted around, offering a foreleg to Jessan to climb onto if she wished. Would you like me to carry you there? I don’t have riding straps on, but you can hold on to my neckridges. I won’t drop you.