Work Text:
Fifty-five eggs, Britain had won in the war. Fifty-five!
Lily had carried her crew against land and sea; through enemy terrain and into battle; had interrogated her every errant tail-twitch or acid drip, for fear of harming those smaller lives which existed along-side her. Yet never had she felt herself so conscious of the weight she bore as each of the eggs were stowed safely within her belly netting, heavily wrapped inside individual crates.
Not all of them were stowed on her body, of course! That would have been daring some great misfortune! No, they were being distributed across her entire formation, six per dragon—
— her formation, and the pair of ferals who had accompanied them to France.
"My dear, stop fretting," Catherine said, reaching up on tip-toes to pet her muzzle.
"I am not fretting, I am supervising," Lily informed her primly. Even as she spoke, Arkady noticed her sharp-eyed gaze as the runners were checking his harness straps, and quailed beneath it. Good.
To be (reluctantly) fair to Arkady, he was being far more still and sensible than Lily had perhaps ever seen the Pamir feral be, neck held high and dignified. Still, one could not blame her for her concern, not at all, when one considered the dreadful state Mr. Tharkay had been found in after their last journey together.
Of course, an egg was not a man, for all they were terribly similar sometimes, and that had been war, not peace-time. Still, one could not help but worry after his judgment of his and his second-in-command.
Speaking of Wringe... Lily turned her attention to the dragon. She was still waiting her turn, and though she seemed sensibility of the responsibility being laid upon their back, was taking to it with an overabundance of anxiety. She did not seem able to keep still— she kept leaping into the air, diving and twirling, kicking up dust, until at last Nitidus caught her tail as she flew past and bit it firmly. She yelped and settled into place, but still her tail lashed, forcing all the men to give her a wide berth.
"To the right, to the right!" called Sutton, gesturing and directing the ground crew to safely manoeuvre the next two crates to Messoria.
Of course dragons did not need human captains to supervise them— that was proper nonsense. But perhaps some dragons required supervision, and it was one of life's cruel ironies that they were the ones least likely to have it.
The whole affair took near-about an hour, which Lily knew, for Catherine had been tracking it upon her pocket-watch, which she closed with a brisk snap. "If you'd call attention, pray?"
Lily did so, with a great thumping of her tail and a long trill issued deep from the back of her throat, and all eyes came to settle upon her.
"We shall keep it brief!" Captain Harcourt called into her speaking trumpet. "You all know the mission, and the point need not be belaboured. We are to see these eggs safely delivered to Dover tonight!"
"The weather is fair, and the wind is in our favour," Lily said loudly, taking up the next segment. "But we all know well enough how quickly that can change, and so we will have no dawdling or detours!"
Harcourt finished, "Final checks, and then arrow-head formation, quick as you please!"
Tails thumped to show that they had been heart. From there came the chorus followed by "All lies well!" in sequence. From there, they all took flight, starting in sequence with the yellow reapers, all of them spiralling up, up, up into the bright blue French sky.
Lily was not quite last— Maximus came up behind her— and she had just levelled out into the holding pattern when there was the quick snap of their nation's flag unfurling behind her.
The sound sent a jolt through her. Not the pride she usually felt as flag dragon, but a sharp pain of anxiety. It had been negotiated under Treaty, and so they would fly under British colours, but just now Lily could not feel it was rather like painting targets upon all of their bellies. As the formation weaved, coalescing into their flying pattern, she could not help by glance around at the French dragons and their soldiers still in the covert below.
Many had not wanted to relinquish their eggs, she knew. Oh, plenty had not minded, knowing the eggs would be cared for well under their new stewards. But many a beast who would have otherwise been sanguine about the affair were less trusting when their eggs were to go to the nation they had been at war for a decade and more.
That lingering uncertainty was why Arkady and Wringe had been sent along with them, in fact. It took hardly any prompting at all for the pair to go on about how wonderfully the two eggs they had surrendered into the tender care of the British aerial corps had gotten on. The details of what precisely they were saying was more difficult to untangle, but their enthusiasm was such that it was worth the network of translators they necessitated. Nothing and no one else could have served as greater inducement, and it had encouraged the most recalcitrant of the French dragons to agree to the terms.
So Lily had to be grateful for Arkady and Wringe's assistance, she supposed. But given that they had apparently been so pleased by not having to manually brood their eggs, could one blame her for being anxious for their solicitude?
But she needn't have worried. The weather remained fair, and no French dragons gave them any trouble, and Lily only needed to make the slightest gesture of wing or tail to adjust the formations' flight patterns in response to shifting winds.
In fact, their flight was so smooth, that within an hour Wringe and Arkady were singing.
This was not uncommon among the ferals, who seemed to have no end of songs to entertain themselves upon long flights. They were often long epic tales of humble eggs who rose to become powerful pack leaders with impressive hoards of treasure. Temeraire had translated a few of the songs, and they had been wonderfully entertaining, certainly better than some of the novels Catherine had read her; but for the most part the British dragons enjoyed the music as music, pleasing rhythms that rose and fell in chorus with the winds.
This song was different, though. Not a tune which Lily recognised, and with a different pattern, simpler. Not sung together, either, but with Arkady and Wringe trading off from one another, picking off where the other left off.
Lily could pick out a few works, too, a rarity in the ferals' usual songs, so swift and dense. Fields... Cows... Cliffs...
As they approached the shoreline of the channel, and she picked out the Durgzeh word for 'ocean' ("it literally translates to 'very very large pond'," Temeraire had once translated disdainfully) it finally dawned upon Lily: "They are singing of our route!"
"Why, I think you're right," Immortalis agreed, as the two briefly swapped places in the formation, giving Lily a rest from the demanding position at the arrow-head.
"But whyever for?" wondered Nitidus, on her starboard.
None of them were so rude as to interrupt the song to ask, of course. But once they were out over the Channel, there was, of course, no more landmarks to sing about— only mentions of general air currents or mentions of fishing boats. So with one last joint chorus— Lily could only make out the phrase 'fly well'— the ferals' singing came to an end, and all the rest of the formation called out cheers for the performance.
Those compliments quite naturally segued into asking after the song, which Wringe in particular was eager to answer. So eager, in fact, that she landed directly upon Lily's back without proper warning, and all of Lily's crew shouted protest as they scrambled out of the way.
Lily chided her, but only mildly— the other dragon had just put on a show for them all, after all, and it was good to keep the crew alert.
Her first lieutenant Challoner had a better hang of the ferals' tongue than her, and translated. "It's to teach the eggs," she exclaimed. "So that when they, they shall know their territory, and where to find food."
Which was perfectly sensible, of course. Living in the wilderness, the feral dragonettes would not have someone leading a fresh goat on a lead. Indeed, perhaps the one complain the Pamir ferals had regarding the corps' approach to dragon rearing, was they thought it a bite embarrassing that the hatchlings did not hunt for their first meal. While the adult dragons would not assist in that first hunt directly, thee was nothing that prevented them passing along advice in the shell.
"Well I call that sensible," Maximus said, when this had been passed along, an everyone agreed. Even if these hatchlings would not need to hunt immediately out of the shell, it could only be helpful to get started on their education.
Though perhaps not hunting grounds, they agreed, or not only hunting grounds. They should learn things that would help them in the corps, such as the different formation styles, as well as military ranks, and the location of all the British coverts. And while, they all continued to agree, it was very good these dragons be able to speak Durgzeh, their strongest language of course should be English.
So of course it followed that the British dragons needed to sing a song of their own.
This proved to be, if not a total disaster, than certainly hardly what anyone could call a success.
First the formation attempted to copy the ferals' song. While they were able to replicate its melody well enough (and Wringe loudly interrupted with demonstrations whenever they did not), it became increasingly obvious that English was not well suited to the piece, its words either becoming clipped mid-syllable, or else the singers having to rush it all out in a single breath.
"Clearly we must try a better song!" Dulcia cried out.
That much was obvious, but what song? Soon enough it was a cacophony of everyone singing their personal favourites, from Two Maids Went Milking One Day to We Be Three Aviators or Haul Away Joe. Even when a pair of dragons could agree upon singing the same song, it soon devolved into a quarrel of how to re-write the lyrics. Messoria in particular kept snapping at Immortalis that he kept omitting the rhyme, while he maintained that it was rather juvenile to think poetry need rhyme at all, to which Dulcia said, "Well, this isn't poetry, it is music!"
If the eggs were learning anything from this this hubbub, it was to stopper their ears with wool, Lily thought.
Noticing how quiet Lily had fallen among this cacophony, Catherine leaned forward to press a small hand on Lily's neck. "Are you alright, darling?"
Lily grunted and flicked her ears back in answer, though said nothing more. She was filling her mind up with words, straight even lines of them, and she feared if she opened her mouth too soon they would all go streaming away.
"—well we do not HAVE a tuba, do we?" Nitidus exclaimed.
Right, then.
As her friends began to discuss which instruments could or couldn't be played from dragon-back, Lily abruptly angled herself upwards into a steep ascent, a maneuver selected to draw the entire formation's attention. This evidently succeeded, as the entire formation fell into sudden surprised silence.
"All is well!" she cried, to reassure them all she had not reacted in response to an attack or other emergency. Then, wishing she had Temeraire's trick of hovering in place, she swept herself in a circle around the rest of the formation so that he would hear her. "I have a chant, if you will repeat after me!"
"Aye!" they all cried back.
It was force of habit more than anything, Lily knew, but so she had been counting on. She was formation leader, and so she intended to lead.
As she settled back into place at point of the formation's arrow, Lily drew a deep breath, and in a high, clear voice began: "Listen close and listen well!"
Maximus, dear Maximus, was the first to take up the chant in his deep roll of a voice: "Listen close and listen well!"
"And we shall guide you in your shell!"
"And we shall guide you in your shell!" Up came both Messoria and Dulcia's voices to join as a two-piece harmony.
"You'll hatch and join the aerial corps~"
Nitidus and Immortalis added to the chorus, steady and strong: "You'll hatch and join the aerial corps~"
"To help defend British shores!"
"To help defend British shores!" And on this line, even Arkady and Wringe joined, perhaps not fully understanding the words but making up for it with sheer enthusiasm.
With the full voice of her entire formation at her back, Lily sang the next line with pride: "Choose a captain brave and fair~"
By now all the crews were singing too, and while their voices were small and reedy compared to the bellow of dragon and rushing of winds, they nonetheless added a definite texture to the song. "Choose a captain brave and fair~"
"And always keep them in your care!" Lily felt Catherine's hand upon her neck as she sang those words, and heard her voice too as the repeated chorus rose up behind her, lifting her as surely as any updraft.
"Do your duty, do what's right~"
"Do your duty, do what's right~"
It was hardly the most sophisticated song, Lily was aware. It lacked the complex melodies and instrumentation of a proper orchestral score, or even the shifting rhythms of the shanties sailors had sung over their long sea voyages.
" Fly with honour to the fight!"
"Fly with honour to the fight!"
Yet it was that very simplicity that made it successful. No changing of rhythm or meter, just rhyming couplets, call and response.
" No matter size, no matter breed~"
"No matter size, no matter breed ~ "
Well, perhaps Maximus was a little slower with that response.
"We stick together, that's our creed!"
"We stick together, that's our creed!"
But he rallied on the next, the formation's voices strong as they carried on steadily towards England's shore.
"Follow orders and take the prize~"
"Follow orders and take the prize~"
Lily was beginning to run out of lines herself.
"And through the ranks you'll surely rise!"
"And through the ranks you'll surely rise!"
That was alright, though. Now fully into the rhythm, her friends had verses of their own to add, signalling with raised tails when they wished to lead. In this way, every member of the formation added at least one couplet, covering what seemed to be nearly every possible topic the waiting eggs could wish to know— how best to stack yourselves for a comfortable sleeping pile, the best ways to eat cows, or a reminder to insist on receiving your pay.
By then, though, the sun was beginning to sink into the sky. The White Cliffs of Dover were no longer distant smudges but stood proud and tall, gleaming golden in the evening light. Though it had no been a particularly gruelling flight, as such things went, the promise of the warm paving stones and fine cattle of the covert was nonetheless deeply appealing.
It was time to bring the eggs home.
So as Lily urged the formation forward with one final push of speed, she sang:
"Soon we'll land and then we'll part~"
"Soon we'll land and then we'll part~"
Over the cliffs they went, the sea vanishing, familiar green fields immediately rushing up to take the water's place.
"We hope these words you'll take to heart~"
"We hope these words you'll take to heart~"
Towns and streets lead up to the covert, and Lily spotted a handful of people pointing upwards at their passing.
"Here's one last lesson from our song:"
"Here's one last lesson from our song:"
Hoping they might hear too, Lily took a deep breath, and launched into the finale refrain: "Always listen to your captain!"
"Always listen to your captain!"
"—Unless they're wrong!"
"UNLESS THEY'RE WRONG!"
Upon Lily's back and all around her, the humans burst out into a chorus of splutters and laughed, and the dragons, unable to swoop for concern of the eggs, let great a great series of gleeful cackles at their expense.