Tate- Departure (2)

Ms. Marge tapped him on the shoulder. He turned from tightening Benny's saddle cinch and looked at her.

She smiled up at him kindly. "I just wanted to say thank you for being such a good master to us these past five years. You made working here and being with little Aliya easy and pleasant. You never kept us from her or made us feel looked down on. You are a good man despite your well..." she chuckled, "ruthless reputation. You were not what we were expecting and once again I thank you for being good to us."

Uncomfortable with her words he just nodded his head in a half bow. She didn't say anything else and she probably knew that he wouldn't say anything more either. It was not his way.

"Safe travels, Master Tate. I hope you have a safe journey." She wished and then she curtsied and walked away.

He mounted Benny and looked around a few other servants, mostly male, but a few of the females made brief eye contact and gave nods or small smiles. He returned the nods and then he directed Benny out of the gate and onto the road.

The road was long and boring. He met the occasional lone traveler or small party on his first two days but beyond greetings in passing none stopped to make conversation with him or invite him to camp with them.

He felt extreme loneliness for the first time in his life. Even after Aquana had died he'd had his family there, for the last five years he'd had Aliya and a castle full of servants. Now that he thought about it, this was the first time in his life that he was completely alone without another sentient being for company.

Benny was a great horse but he was not a sentient intelligence, he could not talk to him or respond to him in a meaningful way. All his life he'd been with people or more so with Aquana.

A dragon's intelligence was actually on par with or in many cases above a humans. Dragons could reason and emote. Besides humans, there were the only other creatures that were able to make connections to humans and other species.

Since he was all alone his mind wandered down the darkest paths with ruthlessness. He now knew the true terror of being alone with your thoughts.

They circled in his mind viciously. His thoughts and feelings of regret and uselessness were churning up into a cyclone in his mind that was going to drag him over the cliff of his own sanity.

He couldn't even sleep due to these obsessive and dark thoughts.

His eyes felt heavy and grainy and he could feel himself losing weight and muscle with each passing day. He kept forgetting to eat and when he did think about it he made excuses about it not being a good time to stop or some such nonsense.

"I'm nothing now. I have nowhere to go and nothing to do. It doesnt matter if I hurry home or not there really nothing waiting for me there. What am I going to do when I get home, sit in my mother's parlor all day? I'm just a washed-up dragon rider with no dragon. I can't contribute anything meaningful. Aliya was probably the last meaningful task I will ever have. What can the Emperor do with me now? How will I live? Am I just going to live off my parents for the rest of my life? I don't know how to do anything else, dragons are all I know."

This chain of doubts and thoughts and the rabbit holes related to each point were drowning him without him being able to realize it anymore. He just rode each day as long as he could, trapped in his mind.

It was a good thing that Benny was a good and smart horse that took care of his rider because Tate had stopped giving him any real direction after the first few days. Now he wasn't even an active rider but may as well have been another piece of luggage for Benny to carry.

When the sun went down each day Tate just slipped off Benny and laid his head on whatever rock or clump of grass could be found on the side of the road. He didn't have the energy or will to make himself a fire or bedroll. Again, thank goodness Benny was a good horse who, although he grazed around at night, felt himself connected to his master even when no physical bonds were present.

Tate had hardly noticed the Misty Veil approaching. His mind noted it but didn't dwell on it. On the day that the road turned to go by it, he did the first active thing he'd done in a long time.

The sudden direction scared poor Benny who had been getting used to this feeling of being his own boss. He'd whinnied and jigged sideways before giving into his master's change in course. They approached the veil until they were so close that Benny began to get very nervous. After all, to his vision they may as well have already been inside the fog that took up the horse's entire field of vision.

Tate dismounted clumsily and Benny decided to take matters into his own hands and retreat to wait for his strange master. Tate didn't try to stop him.

Tate looked at the ground. Less than a foot in front of his toes the mist was hitting the ground and curling up just slightly. It was a phenomenon that was constantly in motion. He stood there and just stared, mesmerized at the movements of the mist, for the first time since leaving the castle he wasn't thinking at all.

He sat down cross-legged in front of the veil and scooted forward until his knees were just shy of touching this forbidden wonder.

He'd been told all his life that dragons lay beyond this veil. He wondered what a land full of dragons looked like.

He knew that this veil was an impenetrable barrier, but he couldn't help himself. His hand raised and he touched it. His fingers disappeared into the grey matter effortlessly.

He was curious now, how far could he stick his hand in? Where did the actual barrier start? He pushed his hand forward, flattening his palm in preparation for hitting something that in his mind he thought would feel like glass or solid rock.

The mist was cold and wet but his hand met no resistance. After his hand his arm. He was nose to water droplet with the veil when he really realized that he wasn't feeling any resistance. What would happen if he stuck his face in?

Now some people would have stopped at this point and asked themselves what the consequences might be. However, Tate was in a state beyond caring for any potential harm that may come to himself. instead, he was riding off the high of feeling alive for the first time in over two weeks. His heart was pounding and a stupid smile was on his lips. He probably looked crazy.

This was all a wild impulse, he'd come over to the veil and sat in front of it just because it was there and he'd had no thoughts.

Now, he was excited. What if...

What if...

He held his breath and plunged his face in.

After a pause, he breathed in.

It was like drinking fire.

He gasped as strong magic went down his throat and into his lungs with every breath he took. As a dragon rider, you got used to detecting small amounts of magic that dragons used for their various skills. This was different though, he'd never experienced it in such an intense concentration. It was excruciating but at the same time addictive.

He could not stop breathing it in and out, filling his lungs to the max and then pushing it all back out. He felt this magic filling him up from the inside out. Soon it was not just his lungs that were burning but every part of his body from the ends of his hair to his toes.

He had the crazy desire to just stay here for the rest of his life, he could become a part of the veil. For the first time since losing Aquana he'd found something as addicting as flying and that was this magic. If he couldn't fly why couldn't he just stay here and breathe in this substance until he died?

He opened his eyes for the first time. At first, all he saw was more mist, like being in the densest fog imaginable, but then it swirled and shifted with his breath, and for a moment, but only a moment he saw the other side. He saw the other side of the open wilds he was in. Rolling hills, forests, and mountains beyond. He tried to take it all in as the mist was quickly rolling back over his eyes obscuring his vision again, but then he saw it.

A shadow raced over the ground in front of him, it was so quick he could be wrong but he doubted he was wrong.

How could a dragon rider not know what a dragon's shadow looked like?