text: Nrararn and I had been playing tsheriaf on the cliff walls by the Sea of Tangay all morning, and were busily eating roasted goatish sorts of things in spicy yogurt, and joking with the cooks about whether he could make flatbreads big enough for us to eat roast goatish sort of thing properly (viz., with flatbread). Tarcuna clomped by my side and whacked me with a clatter of her dragon-taming staff.
  
  "So why are you angry at me today?" I asked her, since she smelled quite angry.
  
  She fumed, "If you've saved someone once, you're obliged to save them again — right?"
  
  "No, but I often will. What do you need rescue from this time? You don't look kidnapped."
  
  She tossed her staff down, and the cymbals crashed on stones. "Not me. Bthera. Also Dr. Grauzeng."
  
  "I remember Bthera," I said, since I did.
  
  "I should hope so. Well, are you going to go rescue her, or not?"
  
  "Probably I am, if the expression on your face is any indication. From what, or is that a surprise?"
  
  Tarcuna glared at me. "You have not been paying attention to the news from Trest."
  
  "I have a fierce minion to do that job for me," I pointed out reasonably.
  
  "You've got a combat-grade social secretary, I should say," Nrararn pointed out. "It's easier to fight Csirnis than Tarcuna. Csirnis knows how to stop fighting when he loses."
  
  I nodded. "And when he wins, too."
  
  Tarcuna picked up her staff again. "Are you going to just talk when there's lives to be saved?"
  
  "Whose lives are we saving, exactly, and from what?" asked Nrararn.
  
  "We? You're coming too?" I asked him.
  
  He snorted a gust of incandescent sparks. "I could stay here and eat your share of the goats 'til you get back."
  
  "My goats! My goats! My tasty, tasty goats!" I lamented. "Actually, if Arilash were still around, I imagine you'd stay."
  
  "A drake cannot afford to pass up any advantage in his quest to get a mate," he noted. Which he says at least twice a day now.
  
  I've got about three good answers. I picked, "Csirnis and Osoth have their own approach to the matter."
  
  "Csirnis and Osoth flee in the face of my intense devotion," said Nrararn.
  
  "Which has intensified considerably now that Arilash's claspers are out of the picture," I pointed out.
  
  Cymbals crashed in front of my nose. "Will you please get going?"
  
  I looked down at Tarcuna. "Where are we going, and why?"
  
  "Dr. Grauzeng's house got set on fire last night. Snipers shot everyone as they came out," said Tarcuna. "We are going to the St. Ploque-Dar Hospital in Dorday, where they are in critical condition. To start with. Then we shall see what to do next."
  
  "Poor hovens! Whyever did anyone do that?" I asked. "But you're right. Yes, we are going. Nrararn, will you come?" I put the Melismatic Tempest into myself, and, when he spread his vô away, into him as well. I don't cast it nearly as well as Arilash. Or please my fiancés as well as Arilash. I am pretty sure she's ahead of me in the mating flight, despite dropping out of it.